Thread by @GovPritzker

You don’t have to be an epidemiologist to see that this virus is going to hit our budget hard – a reality hitting every state.

After discussing it with the legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle, today I'm reviewing the financial impacts of #COVID19 on our state budget.

Keep in mind that these are preliminary & estimated figures since this virus is not yet vanquished.

The bottom line is this: budget experts estimate that Illinois will have a $2.7 billion shortfall of revenues for this fiscal year & a $4.6 billion shortfall for next fiscal year.

In every state, the coronavirus pandemic has substantially disrupted our sources of revenue.

Even those without a stay at home order face massive fiscal hardship.

This is a public health crisis – accompanied by massive economic disruption that’s unprecedented in modern history.

Let’s start with FY20: Estimates by @ILDeptofRevenue economists show a 7% drop in our ‘state source’ revenue — the $2.7 billion mentioned earlier. $1 billion of that is due to the three-month extension to file income taxes. Those revenues will be received in FY21 instead of FY20.

Looking to close the FY20 fiscal gap, we have already begun taking steps to reduce expenditures, asking agency directors to enact spending reductions and efficiencies.

My team has been working with @ILTreasurer and @ILComptroller to leverage over $700 million in other state funds to support the operations of state government and issue up to $1.2 billion in short-term borrowing as constitutionally permitted in unexpected situations like this.

This is not the path any of us would choose under normal circumstances, but it is the best path available to us with the two and a half months left in this fiscal year.

Our state has made tremendous fiscal progress in the last 1.5 years: enacting a balanced budget and reducing our bill backlog and late payment penalties.

This crisis will take us off course for a little while, but we must put ourselves back on track as soon as we can.

For FY21, we estimate there will be at least $4.6 billion less in state revenues than originally estimated.

Accounting for paying back FY20 short-term borrowing, our total budgetary gap for FY21 is $6.2 billion — or $7.4 billion if the graduated income tax is not enacted.

Illinoisans are all too familiar with the pain the lack of a state budget can cause, so let me say upfront: we will not go without a state budget.

We'll need to make extraordinarily difficult decisions on top of ones already made, but together with the GA, we will make them.

We will do so with an unswerving dedication to fairness.

In my inaugural address, I said that I won't balance a budget on the backs of the starving, the sick and the suffering.

It’s during our most trying moments that our resolve is truly tested – our moral character as a state is tested.

So in the midst of a pandemic, I am more resolute than ever to protect those who are suffering physical and financial hardship from it.

I want to express my gratitude to our Illinois Congressional delegation – our Senators and Congressmen – for their support for the first CARES Act which provides up to $2.7 billion to cover state government expenditures in response to the pandemic.

These dollars can be used to cover new expenditures related to COVID-19 — not to make up for state revenue shortfalls that have been a result of the virus.

That leaves states to face an unprecedented financial hole on their own if the Congress doesn’t pass a CARES Act 2.

The federal government acted swiftly to step in and support businesses and corporations so they can come out on the other side of this and jumpstart the economy – that same type of action is needed in support of state governments.

This is about ensuring that in the wake of this pandemic, the nation isn’t facing down a second storm standing in the way of funding for schools, health care, the environment & public safety.

This is about the continuity of the essential services that give people a real chance.

Illinois, when I said we were all in this together – that’s true from Cairo to Chicago, from Rockford to Metropolis.

We are one Illinois.

But it’s also true across the country.

We are one nation – and as a nation made up of the fifty states, we are facing, by early estimates, state budget deficits of at least half a trillion dollars – largely concentrated in this coming fiscal year.

The words of our greatest president ring true today – so we ask the Congress to do for the states what it alone can do to get us through this crisis – together.