Legislative leaders discuss next steps for failed transit reform push
[June 06, 2025]
By Ben Szalinski
SPRINGFIELD — Minutes before the clock hit midnight and the calendar
flipped to June 1, the Illinois Senate advanced a much-watched
legislative proposal to reform and fund public transportation in the
Chicago area and prevent dire cuts to service.
But Chicago Democrat Sen. Ram Villivalam’s Hail Mary attempt to avoid
cuts was downed short of the end zone as opposition mounted to the
bill’s revenue plan, particularly its creation of a $1.50 package
delivery fee in the state. The House declined to take up the transit
funding bill, as the stroke of midnight meant the chamber required a
three-fifths majority vote to advance any legislation that would take
effect before June 2026.
Chicago’s public transit agencies are now entering an uncertain future.
Public hearings on service cuts could begin this summer, but lawmakers
say they are dedicated to finding solutions.
“The funding doesn’t run out until Dec. 31 of this year,” House Speaker
Chris Welch, D-Hillside, told Capitol News Illinois for the latest
episode of the “Illinois Lawmakers” program. “We have time, so I think
it’s important to take our time and get it right.”
The transit agencies will each run out of pandemic relief funding at
various points in 2026, creating deficits in their budgets if lawmakers
don’t find new funding sources.
Meanwhile, Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, acknowledged he had
reservations about the proposal’s revenue-generating measures, which
include the delivery fee as well as a statewide tax on electric vehicle
charging and the expansion of a Chicago tax on real estate transfers to
the suburbs.
“Frankly, I don’t like them all that much,” Harmon said of the revenue
measures in an interview with Capitol News Illinois. “I wish there were
better alternatives. But if you don’t like them, come and tell us how
you’d pay for it, because this is going to be expensive and most of the
stakeholders seem to be worried about protecting or expanding their own
power and having somebody else pay for it.”
The impending cliff
While there’s technically time before the funds run dry, transit
agencies say they’re planning next year’s budgets now.
Regional Transportation Authority spokesperson Tina Fassett Smith said
in a statement Sunday that agencies will move forward on evaluating
their budgets based only on funding that the systems are “confident”
they will receive in 2026. Right now, those budgets collectively contain
a $771 million shortfall as pandemic relief funds expire.
Both the RTA and Chicago Transit Authority have meetings scheduled next
week where talks will presumably focus on how the agencies will maintain
a balanced budget in 2026. The RTA previously projected that if
lawmakers fail to deliver funding, it would lead to thousands of layoffs
and 40% service cuts.
Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson told Capitol News Illinois the
end of October appears to be a clearer deadline for legislative action,
because the agencies finalize budgets in November.
“This is a sooner-than-later exercise because the closer we get to the
next budget cycles of the service boards themselves, the more that this
gets driven by doom-and-gloom scenarios – which are correct scenarios –
but they’re going to be an effort to drive the revenue imperatives
without the reform imperatives,” Ferguson said.
The agencies are federally required to have public hearings before
enacting service cuts.
Why reform failed
Both legislative chambers introduced separate plans late in the final
week of May, which although similar in many ways, contained key
differences showing lawmakers were still apart on a deal. The
differences only became more magnified as labor organizations and
suburban communities opposed a series of taxes designed to plug the
funding shortfall.
That new funding proposal surfaced in the Senate on Saturday afternoon,
hours before the legislature was scheduled to adjourn. The plan did away
with proposed toll increases and a diversion of sales tax revenue away
from collar county governments. Instead, it proposed the new statewide
tax on deliveries, and kept a statewide tax on EV charging, as well as
suburban taxes on real estate transfers and rideshares.
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Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, D-Chicago, testifies in a House committee
about public transportation reform on Thursday, May 29, 2025.
(Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
Lawmakers negotiating the bill had vowed “no funding without reforms,” a
pledge they remain committed to, Villivalam told Capitol News Illinois,
noting they should be tackled at the same time.
The two chambers are generally in agreement on transit reform, which
includes giving new decision-making authority to the RTA to set fares
and schedules and renaming the agency to “Northern Illinois Transit
Authority.”
But when the adjournment deadline came, the House wasn’t prepared to
take up a bill addressing funding even after months of negotiations,
Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, D-Chicago, who is leading transit reform for
House Democrats, told Capitol News Illinois.
“We spent hours and hours and hours in negotiation, so our reform bills
were very similar,” she said. “What we didn’t spend hours and hours and
hours talking about was the revenue.”
Villivalam said the tax increases and other revenue solutions in his
plan would raise $1.5 billion – enough to plug the budget hole and fund
transit at a level that the RTA says would significantly improve public
transportation. But House Democrats didn’t have time to review the
funding options.
“Based on my conversations with members, they needed to know more,”
Delgado said. “They needed to understand more and, you know, that is now
my job is to make sure that whatever revenue plan we come up with, it’s
communicated, and people understand what it is.”
Despite facing an uncertain future in the House, Villivalam said the
Senate voted on the bill because “we believe in responsible governance,
and we believe in avoiding 40% cuts to service and more than 3,000
workers getting layoff notices.”
Reaching a deal to stop cuts
With November being the next pressing deadline for action, lawmakers
could return to Springfield for a special session this summer or wait
until the annual fall veto session to act on transit reform.
Whenever the General Assembly reconvenes, they will need broader
agreement, as the three-fifths vote requirement remains in effect
through the calendar year. While the House could still send Villivalam’s
bill to the governor’s desk, it passed the Senate on a 32-22 vote –
short of three-fifths of the chamber. Several Democrats voted against
the plan, foreshadowing the headwinds in the House.
Gov. JB Pritzker hasn’t expressed an opinion on the proposed taxes. He
told reporters on Sunday he learned about the taxes at the same time
Villivalam unveiled them to the public.
“We were not the leaders of that endeavor, but we were at the table,
listening and helping whenever we were asked to,” Pritzker said. “And
again, I think there’s significant work that will need to be done over
the summer and in the fall to make sure that it gets across.”
The tax increases were nonstarters for Republicans, who haven’t proposed
their own funding plan – and Democrats don’t need their votes to reach a
three-fifths majority.
“We need to look at things holistically and restructure rather than
continuously adding more taxes to pay the bills,” House Minority Leader
Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, told Capitol News Illinois.
Senate Minority Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, told Capitol News
Illinois lawmakers should not be depending so much on new taxes.
“We would put out a much more constrained proposal … there’d be a little
more skin in the game on efficiencies and fares, and then we would be
coming to taxpayers last in that,” Curran said. “And, quite frankly,
we’d be taking a more regional approach on that, and not a statewide
approach.”
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