Pritzker’s record-high budget: More spending, more taxes

As a business leader, would you approve in under 24 hours a 3,400-page annual plan you had just read for the first time? What if the provisions changed two hours before the deadline?

Probably not. Yet that’s exactly how Illinois lawmakers approach the end of every legislative session when passing the state budget.

Just last week, when the Illinois General Assembly passed a record-setting $55.2 billion budget for 2026, the legislation was so rushed that even bill sponsors seemed unclear on the exact amount taxpayers would be asked to pay. They rubber-stamped another year of spending that follows a familiar fiscal playbook: spend more and hand Illinois residents and businesses the bill.

This is no way to manage a state budget. Illinoisans need their General Assembly to build a budget like a responsible business does — with transparent guidelines and responsible spending.

What’s in the budget

The 2026 budget grew spending by $2 billion and requires taxpayers to pay more than $800 million in additional costs through a combination of tax increases, fund sweeps and budget gimmicks. Still, lawmakers postured about how hard it was to pass and how they had made “austere cuts.”

Since taking office in 2019, Gov. JB Pritzker has grown Illinois’ budget by $16.7 billion and enacted more than 50 tax hikes. This latest budget includes more than $394 million in additional tax revenue, plus takes away what little relief Illinois offers property taxpayers.

The state’s Property Tax Relief Grant was cut, which likely will result in an effective $43 million property tax hike on homeowners already paying the nation’s No. 2 rate. Meanwhile, lawmakers voted themselves pay raises of more than $6,000 for the coming year. Could state lawmakers be any more tone-deaf or have more warped priorities?

One notable bright spot: Lawmakers made a minimal change to the Tier 2 pension system to ensure the Tier 2 salary cap adheres to federal requirements. In so doing, lawmakers rejected a costly pension spike that would’ve added more than $64.5 billion in pension benefit increases to a system that already consumes more than 20% of the state’s budget.

The pension spike proposal, backed by government unions, would’ve reduced retirement ages, increased cost-of-living adjustments and compounded costs. Lawmakers should reject any attempts to revive such proposals in future budgets.

Lawmakers also didn’t pass some of the most egregious bills that would’ve hit the wallets of Illinois residents and businesses. Among these were a proposal to expand the state’s sales tax to services including streaming platforms, rideshares and even haircuts. The Revenue Alliance, a coalition including the Chicago Teachers Union, also pushed for new taxes on deliveries such as Amazon packages or DoorDash, as well as on digital ad revenue, which lawmakers rejected.

However, lawmakers failed to address the $770 million fiscal cliff facing Chicago-area transit agencies. As they work toward filling that hole, all these tax hikes could be back on the table — with Illinois businesses and residents left paying. Illinoisans should keep the pressure on the General Assembly to ensure these harmful policies do not resurface.

Where do we go from here?

To start, Illinois lawmakers must fix how they estimate the state’s spending capabilities.

Illinois is one of just 11 states that doesn’t require actual spending at the end of the year to match what was planned. Illinois currently uses two conflicting revenue estimates that are rarely on target and have enabled years of recurring deficits when those projections don’t pan out. Lawmakers budget as if the revenue is guaranteed, with no consequences for when it falls short. This feeds Illinois’ tax-and-spend cycle.

Instead, Illinois should adopt consensus forecasting, a budgeting tool through which government agencies average their revenue estimates to ensure one, accurate projection and then spend within their means. With a more reliable revenue estimate, taxpayers would likely see fewer last-minute tax hikes. Twenty-eight other states use this budgeting model.

In addition, Illinois should stop allowing the eleventh-hour release of appropriation and revenue bills. Illinois lawmakers have a required three-day reading mandate to share the contents of a bill, but oftentimes this requirement is circumvented by using “shell bills.” These permit lawmakers to “gut and replace” bill language near the deadline, so taxpayers and other lawmakers are left with little time to provide input or even read the final bill before voting.

The entire 2026 budget was an amendment to a shell bill that was filed and approved in a matter of hours. Many states prohibit this practice — Illinois should join them.

Meaningful changes to the budgeting process can lead Illinois away from an unsustainable fiscal path, to one where Illinois’ residents and businesses can review proposed taxes and spending and weigh in on the issues that affect them. That’s how you’d run a business. That’s how democracy is supposed to work.

• Matt Paprocki is the president and CEO of Illinois Policy Institute.