A New Gaping Budget Hole for Pritzker?
Gov. JB Pritzker delivers his Budget Address on Feb. 19. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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The goalposts keep moving.
After the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) issued a revenue forecast last November showing a potential $3.2 billion budget deficit for FY2026, which begins July 1. By the night before his budget speech last month, the projection had roughly been cut in half, allowing for a budget proposal to increase spending by $2 billion.
Not so fast, maybe.
The bipartisan, bicameral Commission of Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) released its latest revenue estimate Tuesday, projecting about $1.2 billion less than the Governor’s budget plans on bringing in.
Pritzker’s budget projects bring in about $55.5 billion, but the COGFA report projects around $54.2 billion, potentially blowing a $1.2 billion-and-change hole in the new budget.
Republicans, of course, pounced.
“I would like to say that I’m shocked that the governor’s plan is so far out of whack, but the truth is that we’ve been saying this all along,” said Senator Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet), the Senate GOP Chief Budgeteer. “Every year the governor tells us he’s passed another balanced budget, only to find out the next year how upside-down his spending plan really was.”
But Democrats played down the report.
“Every budget has its own unique challenges and FY26 will be no different,” said Sen. Elgie Sims (D-Chicago), the Senate budget negotiator. “Over recent years, we have proven our ability to work together to fill any gaps that may exist and that remains true this year. The COGFA report is another reminder why the pragmatic and responsible actions we have taken to date are so critically important: investing in our state’s rainy day fund, making payments over and above the certified amounts into our state’s pension funds, investing in education, health care and disinvested communities.”
A Pritzker spokesman also played down the COGFA figures.
“Governor Pritzker has proposed and passed six balanced budgets and will continue to work alongside the legislature and budget experts to do it again,” they said in a statement. “The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget team always uses the most up to date data available to us in our forecasts from outside firms like S&P. As COFGA itself says in the report, the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress are imposing tariffs as a tax on working families, giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, and mishandling geopolitical relations that are creating national economic uncertainties and impacting other projections. No matter how much chaos and cruelty Republicans inflict on the American people, Governor Pritzker will prioritize fiscal responsibility and continue working to deliver a balanced budget.”
The Governor’s office pointed to another portion of the report that said “the Commission feels that a more cautious approach is warranted given the economic uncertainties related to the current volatile geopolitical climate, potential tariffs, changes in the federal workforce, and outcomes of other potential policy changes at the federal level.”
If the revenue estimate proves true, it could lead to even more struggles for Democrats to balance the budget by the end of May.
