Editorial | State budget process done; let's see how it plays out

Jun. 4—Illinois' 2023-24 budget plan was carved out in secret and passed in a flash.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is taking victory laps in the aftermath of the passage of a new $50.6 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

That's nothing surprising. Too many people don't pay much attention to the budget process in Springfield. So it would be a political mistake for the governor not to take the opportunity to give the people of Illinois his perspective.

In his visit here, Pritzker touted a budget heavy on education spending, one that provides a free community college education for middle- and lower-income families.

"Illinois' colleges and universities are the most powerful tools we have to build prosperity in all our communities," Pritzker said. "Investing in our higher education ecosystem opens doors to new careers, higher wages, and lifelong dreams — making new beginnings possible for all Illinoisans. It's a smart investment I'm proud we get to make."

The budget reflects the values of Pritzker and his legislative supermajority in Springfield. Their process went relatively smoothly, the one problem being that they didn't have as much money to spend as they wanted.

So rather than spend more than $1 billion to provide free medical care to immigrants in the country illegally, they voted to spend roughly $500 million. Whether that appropriation will be enough remains to be seen.

The budget process this year was tight compared to last year, thanks to the absence of the many, many billions of dollars of federal pandemic aid that went to all 50 states.

The difference between next year's estimated revenues and planned spending is roughly $100 million — not a lot.

Therein could lie a problem, particularly if revenues begin to show signs of unanticipated weakness.

But all things considered, Illinois is in relatively good shape for the short term.

Its unemployment is higher than neighboring states but still relatively low at 4.2 percent. Economists keep warning about a potential recession that has yet to show its presence.

The state's rainy day fund holds more than $2 billion, a financial safety valve in the event of cash-flow problems.

The dangerous long-term problems that simply will not go away are underfunded public pensions.

The budget shorted actuarial required contributions by more than $4 billion, even though pensions appropriations amounted to roughly 25 percent of general fund spending.

And that's not the worst of it. Legislators are grappling with proposals to address problems related to Tier 2 public pensions that affect shorter-term employees.

If past is prologue, legislators won't fix the Tier 2 problem but exacerbate it instead.

This year's state budget process is in the rearview mirror, but it's still not a done deal because of potential problems that could crop up in the months ahead.

Here's another issue: Illinoisans, including many legislators, will find out in the coming months exactly what's in the budget.

The governor and his party's legislative leaders, as is their unfortunate custom, negotiated the vast spending plan in private, made it public at the last minute and demanded a quick vote from those who had no time to review the many thousands of pages it consumed.

That's Illinois' way of doing business. But it's no way to do business on such a serious matter as how the state spends $50-plus billion.