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With a little over two weeks before a deadline to pass a state budget, Illinoisans suddenly are being made aware of a deeper-than-anticipated shortfall.

In an official report released earlier this week, the governor’s Office of Management and Budget released updated revenue forecasts that leaves the state $536 million worse off than earlier projections showed.

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State forecasting should have been more conservative. Late last year, the projected fiscal 2026 shortfall stood at $3.2 billion, shrinking to $1.7 billion by February when Gov. JB Pritzker unveiled his budget. Pritzker’s primary suggestion for cutting costs was to eliminate the state’s expensive program providing health care benefits to immigrants in the country without legal permission, aged 42 to 65, yet another acknowledgement of voter sentiment expressed clearly in November. That would save the state hundreds of millions.

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Still, Pritzker’s budget tops $55 billion, over $16 billion more than the $38.5 billion the state spent in fiscal year 2019, just before Pritzker took office.

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