Gov’s office revises revenue estimates, calls on lawmakers to ‘defray’
noncitizen health care costs
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[May 12, 2023]
By JERRY NOWICKI
Capitol News Illinois
jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker said this week that the state remains “on
a great trajectory from a fiscal perspective,” even as his office
decreased its current-year revenue estimates in light of falling tax
revenues.
The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget this week shaved $616
million off its estimate for current-year revenues, marking a downward
revision of about 1.1 percent. The move corresponded with a $532
million, or roughly 1 percent, increased revenue estimate for the
upcoming fiscal year.
The governor’s office now projects the current year will end with $50.7
billion in revenues collected. In his February budget proposal, he had
proposed about $790 million in supplemental spending for the current
year that would have brought total spending to $51.2 billion – an amount
exceeding the new revenue estimate.
The proposed supplemental spending included $490 million in increased
appropriations for state agencies, a $200 million added pension payment
and $100 million for additional capital improvements at early childhood
centers across the state.
Pritzker suggested at an unrelated news conference Thursday that
spending for the current year could be brought in line with revenues by
slowing the pace of agency spending.
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“We're talking about approximately 1 percent of the entire budget,” he
said. “So knowing that this might be coming, we've ramped down some of
the spending here and there within all of our agencies to make sure that
we could cover that 1 percent difference.”
The downward revision to the current Fiscal Year 2023 estimate was due
to revenues for the month of April coming in $849 million below what
GOMB had projected, an indicator that pandemic-era state revenue spikes
are beginning to slow.
“We understand that the broader economy is slowing down a bit,” Pritzker
said at a Wednesday news conference. “And we also understood that the
benefit to the economy of some of the stimulus that was put into it in
prior years will also wane.”
As for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2024 that begins July 1, GOMB’s revenue
estimate rose to nearly $50.5 billion. The governor’s office now
projects to have $840 million more in revenues than the $49.6 billion
spending amount he proposed for FY 2024.
That increase was partially driven by an expected influx of income tax
revenue tied to an annual reconciliation process for prior-year business
taxes. Recent changes to state and federal tax codes have led to a
greater-than-normal amount of money being subject to the statutory
reallocation process, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue,
although GOMB warns some the revenue bump will be “one-time in nature.”
Still, that upward revision for the upcoming year would not be enough to
cover a shortfall created by a cost overrun related to a state expansion
of health care to noncitizens who would otherwise be ineligible for
Medicaid benefits.
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![](../images/051123PIX/news_a1.jpg)
Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a news
conference Thursday alongside House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch
and Senate President Don Harmon. The three Democratic leaders are in
the midst of budget negotiations with just over a week remaining on
the legislative schedule for the spring session. (Capitol News
Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/May/12/images/ads/current/fcs_funeral_lda_border_04029022.png)
Those programs, which provide health care benefits similar to Medicaid
to noncitizens aged 42 and older, are now expected to cost about $1.1
billion next year – a 400 percent increase from the original estimate of
$220 million included in Pritzker’s February budget proposal.
The program was an initiative of Illinois’ Legislative Latino Caucus,
passed in 2020 during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when
Latinos were getting sick at a higher rate than white Illinoisans. It
officially launched in 2021 for those age 65 and older but exceeded its
anticipated cost within one month.
It has since been expanded twice to cover noncitizens age 42 and older,
and the Democratically controlled legislature is considering expanding
the program to noncitizens between the ages of 19 and 42. Under the
state’s pre-existing AllKids program, noncitizens age 18 and under are
already eligible for Medicaid benefits.
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services noted recently
that the agency expects the federal government to cover about $100 to
$120 million in health care costs in FY 2024 for noncitizens who are
seeking asylum in the U.S.
Pritzker said Wednesday that he is hopeful lawmakers will come up with a
solution for defraying some of the rest of that projected cost. On
Thursday, he gave suggestions for solutions that he said were made
possible by the flexibility the state has since the program is not
subject to the same regulation as Medicaid, which is a joint program
administered by the state and federal governments.
“It is possible, for example, that there could be – for some people at
certain income levels – copays that would defray the costs of the
program,” he said.
Another example, he said, would be to reexamine reimbursement rates.
“These are all things that I think are reasonable to consider to make
sure that we're reining in the cost but also serving the people who most
need this health care,” Pritzker said.
The recent upward revisions to estimated program costs have prompted
sharp criticism from Republicans. But in a news conference earlier in
the week, state Rep. Lilian Jimenez, D-Chicago, pushed back against
calls to end the program.
“Many immigrants in the state of Illinois do contribute to taxes. They
pay their taxes when they work, they file their taxes with an ITIN
number,” she said. “They are taxpaying members of this state and should
be treated as such. And they're also human beings, most of all, and we
have to remember that when we talk about cutting this or cutting that.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news
service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of
print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the
Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along
with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and
Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
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