Illinois’ Budget: The Big Picture

The budget made significant additional investments in behavioral health Medicaid programs, Mobile Crisis Response rates, Crisis Intervention rates, mental health grants, the Behavioral Health Workforce Center, 988 Call Centers, and the Children’s Behavioral Transformation Initiative.

The BIMP made the current income eligibility threshold (225% of FPL) for the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) permanent.

The budget adds over $200 million for a range of developmental disability services. It annualizes the FY23 Guidehouse increases for direct service professionals (DSPs) and provides for an additional $2.50/hr wage rate increase effective January 1, 2024, including regionality. It also expands regionality to Community Day Services rates (i.e., 15% rate factor for Cook and collar counties), annualizes Ligas placements, and makes the required rate adjustment for home-based services.

The final budget included $250 million to fund the first year of a four-year plan called Smart Start Illinois, which is intended to eliminate preschool deserts, increase free preschool / pre-K availability, stabilize the childcare workforce (which is largely made up of Women Of Color), expand the Early Intervention Program and Home Visiting programs, and overhaul the childcare payment management system. Specifically, the budget:

• Expands home visiting ($5 million) 
• Provides rate increases for Smart Start Workforce Compensation Contracts ($130 million) 
• Funds upgrades to the childcare management system ($20 million) 
• Increases capital construction funding for early childhood providers ($50 million) 
• Increases Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) at ISBE ($75 million), and,
• Increases Early Intervention (EI) at IDHS ($40 million including $20.0M to caseload growth and $20.0M for 10% rate increase). 

The budget creates a new $400 million fund for the Governor to close major economic development deals, and includes $20 million for Rebuild Illinois Downtowns and Main Streets Capital Programs, $40 million for social equity cannabis business forgivable loans, and $10 million for an entrepreneurial business portal.

The budget makes the required increase to the K-12 evidence-based funding formula ($350 million) and funds the Minority Teachers of Illinois scholarship (MTI) at $8 million up from $4.2 million, which should increase the number of scholarship candidates by more than half. It allocates $45 million toward a three-year pilot program to fill teacher vacancies and provide scholarships to future teachers (the Governor’s budget requested $70 million for this program).This program builds the teacher pipeline through grants to 170 school districts that have over 80% of teacher vacancies. In FY24, $1.6 million is provided to launch Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library statewide.

The Governor’s proposed Illinois Grocery Initiative was funded in the final budget at $20 million. This new grant program is intended to address food insecurity in food deserts by incentivizing the opening of grocery stores in affected communities across the State and offering resources for buyers to purchasing fresh, nutritious food from Illinois farmers. Learn more and see a map of IL food desserts.

The final budget adapts to the end of the official federal COVID public health emergency by assuming that the enhanced federal Medicaid match (+6.2% since March 2020) will end at the end of September 2023, while also projecting increased enrollment and commencing Medicaid eligibility redeterminations due to end of the federal continuous enrollment requirement. See other changes in health care contained in the 2023 Medicaid Omnibus (HB1298).

The final budget includes a $100 million increase for higher education, including public universities ($80.5 million) and community colleges ($19.4 million), which are the highest increases in over 20 years. Legislators also included the Governor’s recommended $100 million increase in MAP grant funding, bringing the total to $701 million. This should support nearly all community college students and 40% of public university students at or below median income levels in completing post-secondary education debt-free, with tuition and fees covered by MAP + Pell Grants. An additional $3 million in grants to cover textbooks was allocated to higher ed libraries.

While the Governor’s budget did not increase funding for most HIV-related programs when compared to FY23 and even cut Getting to Zero-Illinois, the final budget included $5.28 million in new state funding for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) education, prevention, testing, and treatment.

The budget adds $85 million to Home Illinois, a major expansion in efforts to prevent and end homelessness in IL that also appeared in the Governor’s budget proposal. Related efforts will target the prevention of homelessness, provide crisis response, expand housing support and increase job opportunities for the homeless. The Home Illinois plan includes 4 pillars implemented through a racial equity lens: build affordable and supportive housing, bolster safety net, secure financial stability, and close the mortality gap. At a related summit in June, the Governor announced details.

Key facts:  In Illinois, over 10,000 people are living in emergency shelters, transitional housing, parks, barns, cars, and/or abandoned buildings on any given night; over 47,000 school children experienced homelessness in the 2019-2020 school year; Black people account for 14% of the population in Illinois and make up 61% of residents experiencing homelessness. Rental housing costs, medical expenses, and returning residents from incarceration and jail continue to put individuals at risk of homelessness. Learn More:  What is the Illinois “Affordable Housing Wage?” 

The IL Department of Human Services received a significant overall increase of over 14% from FY23, bringing total spending to over $14 billion. This includes $75 million for the Division of Child and Family Services to hire 192 staff, expand training and protection, increase scholarships for youth in care, and improve facilities, $18 million for reproductive health initiatives, $24 million for a rate increase for services for the elderly, and continued funding to prevent gun violence. The Division of Rehabilitation Services received nearly $45 million in new funds to support the Home Services Program, caseload management, wage increases, homemaker services, adult day care / day transportation. The Division of Mental Health received an additional $11 million to comply with the Williams and Colbert Consent Decrees, ensuring class members’ right to live in the least restrictive setting of their choosing. The Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery budget includes a $6.7 million investment for a mid-year 30% increase in residential services rates.

The final budget included the Governor’s proposal for a $3 million initiative intended to help TGNB community members to thrive and address unique health disparities.

As a whole, the budget package makes significant workforce investments across many fields. It expands workforce development programs to build a pipeline in certain industries like data centers, electric vehicles, and clean energy; more than doubles the Illinois Teacher Loan Repayment Program to $975,000, and similarly increases the Behavioral Health Student Loan Repayment Program.

The final budget excluded the increase needed to address the $12 million shortfall in the 21^st Century Community Learning Centers program. In FY25, the shortfall will grow to $15 million. Advocates estimate that about 12,000 kids will lose after-school and other supports, including services to the parents as a result.

Currently, there is no federal or state tax benefit provided to middle income and lower income taxpayers that donate to nonprofits; only those that itemize their taxes may receive a federal deduction. Only about 10% of IL taxpayers itemize their taxes. There is no state tax credit or deduction for charitable giving in IL. Forefront championed the creation of a state charitable tax credit. It was added to the revenue package in the final hours of the legislative session, then abruptly removed despite strong bipartisan support. We are reassessing whether to continue working on this proposal in veto session. (HB1241 & SB172)

While DD services were allotted increases, advocates will note that the DSP wage hike remains unfinished business. A state-commissioned 2020 study recommended increasing DSP wages to 150% of the state’s minimum wage, which will be $14/hour in January 2024. The $2.50 increase in the budget moves DSP rates to $19.50 as of January 2024, still short of the $4 per hour needed to meet the study’s recommendation to move wages to $21/hour.

This constituted the biggest source of budget pressure at the end of session. The difficulty involves a one-year-old 100% state-funded Medicaid-style program for noncitizens who would otherwise be eligible for Medicaid if not for their citizenship status. This program dramatically outpaced spending projections in its first year. The final budget included an additional $550 million to cover growth, which was paired with changes to rule beginning 7/1/23 that freeze enrollment, and require co-pays and co-insurance. Learn more about the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults (ages 42-64) and Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors (ages 65+) programs. Potentially eligible adult-program individuals may continue signing up through 6/30/23; potentially eligible senior program individuals may sign up until enrollment reaches 16,500. As of June 7, there were 14,594 people enrolled in the senior program. Read more.

While a bill cleaning up the statutory language underpinning this new state program passed, the Human Services Professionals Loan Repayment Program was not funded in FY24; the advocates asked for $15 million.

Several key Forefront partners championed a state child tax credit to support working families, which was not included in either the Governor’s budget or the final revenue package. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 12 states have enacted state child tax credits and among those, nine make the credit refundable. See SB 1444 and HB 3950.

A $9.5 million federal cut will impact rape crisis centers in FY24 across Illinois after the state only partially backfilled the loss with $5 million. Read about one example of the local impact of this shortfall here.