SPRINGFIELD — Lawmakers’ projections for revenues in the coming year aren’t as high as Gov. JB Pritzker’s, raising questions about how much money will be available during this year’s budget negotiations. The General Assembly’s bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability released a new fiscal year 2026 revenue projection Tuesday that is $737 million short of the proposal Pritzker introduced last month.
“At this point with all the uncertainty that’s been talked about, it’s best to have more of a cautious approach,” COGFA Revenue Manager Eric Noggle said at the commission’s meeting Tuesday.
COGFA is projecting $54.2 billion in revenue for the fiscal year beginning July 1, which is $1.2 billion less than Pritzker’s proposed $55.5 billion revenue plan. However, the governor’s plan calls for a series of revenue adjustments that close the predicted gap between his office and COGFA down to $737 million.
The Trump Administration is on a path of cutting federal spending, including money that gets passed to the states for programs, and imposing tariffs on trade partners that experts say could cause prices and inflation to rise.
“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,” a spokesperson for Pritzker said in a statement. “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.”
Republicans argued Pritzker relied on “fuzzy math” to avoid making spending cuts.
“This means he and his Democratic allies will either have to cut spending, increase taxes or both,” Sen. Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, a member of COGFA, said in a statement. “It is time for the governor to take a break from the national stage and focus on the dire financial situation he has created by irresponsible spending in our state.”
COGFA is also projecting a more conservative estimate about the current fiscal year. The commission expects Illinois to finish FY 2025 with $53.6 billion of revenue, which would be $333 million more than lawmakers budgeted. However, that estimate is $286 million less than GOMB’s estimated $53.9 billion for FY 2025.
“The Commission is not as optimistic in its projections for some of the economically-tied resources such as the sales tax and the income taxes,” COGFA’s report said. “At this time, 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.”
Strong income tax returns are providing the state with a boost this year. Personal income tax receipts are projected to be 4.6% higher for FY 2025 than what lawmakers budgeted. That’s helping to make up for the lackluster performance of corporate income taxes, which COGFA projects will end the year 12% lower than expected. Sales taxes are also expected to end the year 3.3% lower than expected.
GOMB Director Alexis Sturm told a House committee last week April income tax receipts could provide a boost this year.
“Our focus really needs to be on how much income tax is going to perform” heading into FY26, Noggle said, because Illinois’ revenue structure is dependent on income taxes meeting expectations.
But COGFA officials also warned there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the economy that could change revenue projections, and the commission could revisit estimates in May before lawmakers push a budget out the door by May 31.
S&P Global’s new February baseline forecast projects real GDP growth of 2%, lower than previous estimates, and rising unemployment in 2025 and 2026, according to the report.
COGFA Chief Economist Ben Varner said Tuesday President Donald Trump’s newest tariffs are also slightly higher than S&P included in their modeling.
The governor’s $55.2 billion budget is based on a December S&P Global forecast that projected stable economic growth and took into account some of Trump’s proposed economic policies, including tariffs and tax cut extensions, Sturm said last week.
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