Illinois budget officials said Thursday that revenues are flowing into state coffers at a faster pace than previously estimated, meaning lawmakers will have more money to work with as they try to finalize a new budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget officially raised its revenue estimate for the current fiscal year by more than $1.4 billion and by $842 million for the upcoming fiscal year.
Those figures are similar to the latest revised estimates from the General Assembly’s budget monitoring agency, the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, which said last week that revenues for the current year would go up about $2 billion while next year’s revenues would be $792 million more than previously forecasted.
That came as good news to state lawmakers who are trying to finalize the next fiscal year’s budget before their scheduled adjournment day May 31, but it still was not enough to completely close the looming deficit in next year’s budget, which House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, estimated at around $1.3 billion.
