Senator Jeffrey M. Schoenberg News

The Illinois Senate passed a balanced budget for the next fiscal year that spends $255 million less than last year’s, fully funds the state’s pension obligations, and sets aside $1.3 billion to pay old bills. While making across-the-board cuts to most agency budgets, it avoids reductions to K-12 education, MAP grants, and other priorities. The budget uses extra money from special funds to pay vendors like childcare providers and nursing homes. The budget stays within caps established earlier this year based on the state’s expected revenue.

“This budget maintains core priorities like access to quality healthcare and education while paying $1.3 billion in old bills and meeting our entire pension obligation of $5.1 billion for the coming year," said Senator Schoenberg. "It strikes the right balance of fiscal responsibility and preservation of vital services that protect vulnerable populations and help keep our economy growing. This budget passed today spends $255 million less than last year’s as we continue moving toward strengthening the state’s financial health.”

Governor to sign changes aimed at securing affordable, quality health care for public retirees

Assistant Majority Leader Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) today secured passage in the Illinois Senate of a plan to dramatically reform the way the state pays for its retirees’ health insurance premiums. Senate Bill 1313 will give Central Management Services the authority to create through collective bargaining a sliding scale for retirees to contribute toward their health insurance premiums based on ability to pay.

“The current situation is both unaffordable and unsustainable,” said Schoenberg, the bill’s chief sponsor in the Senate and a long-time advocate of means-tested retiree health benefits. “If we don’t address this issue, not only will unfunded liabilities grow, but those who are receiving insurance will likely see their co-payments rise dramatically or the richness of their benefits package be diminished, or both.”

Illinois presently spends $880 million subsidizing health insurance premiums for state and university employees. A Mercer Consulting report requested last year by the bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA), which Schoenberg co-chairs, estimated last year that retiree health benefits cost the state $680 million annually. Schoenberg cautioned that without adopting reforms that calculate premium payments based of age and years served, that figure would likely climb to $1 billion within the near future.

Additionally, the state group health insurance program, which contributes to health care for current employees and retirees, carries an unfunded liability projected to exceed $33 billion next year, according to recent COGFA estimates. Over 90 percent of the state’s 78,000 current retirees currently pay no health insurance premiums, regardless of their pension income.

Schoenberg added that his proposal seeks to reverse a crisis that has been decades in the making under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, as during the collective bargaining process both management and labor have declined to ask retirees to pay for even a portion of their health care premiums. “This important step was absolutely necessary to protect the quality and affordability of health insurance for retirees from public employment, particularly those living on fixed incomes who have no other coverage,” Schoenberg said.  “Failing to make changes now would prevent us from protecting the very people we wish to help.”

The House previously approved SB 1313; the governor is now expected to sign it into law.

Senator Schoenberg made the following statement following the Senate’s passage of HJRCA 49, which will require a three-fifths majority to pass increases in public pension benefits:

“This is a meaningful initial step in a larger strategy to address the mounting problem of unfunded liabilities in our public retirement systems. I hope this provides us with some momentum toward taking additional steps to tackle this problem.”

Because the change will require an amendment to the state constitution, it will appear on the ballot in November and must be approved by voters.

Attorney General Madigan Endorses Innovative Proposal

SPRINGFIELD, IL – Legislation that would enable the Illinois State Police to receive private contributions toward eliminating the state’s chronic DNA backlog overwhelmingly passed the Illinois Senate today. Senate Bill 3498, sponsored by Assistant Majority Leader Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston), would create the Illinois State Police DNA Backlog Foundation, a not-for-profit entity directed to pursue grants, private funding and donations to fund DNA testing in order to reduce the backlog of approximately 2,200 DNA samples currently awaiting processing.

Read more: Schoenberg’s Plan to Reduce DNA Testing Backlog Passes Senate

Senate approves bill and guarantees retailers can continue ticket sales

SPRINGFIELD, IL – Assistant Majority Leader Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) secured passage today of legislation that would add the Powerball lottery game to the online lottery pilot program. The bill also provides additional protections for convenience stores and other retailers who were concerned over potentially losing their ability to sell lottery tickets to their customers.

Read more: Schoenberg Moves Closer to Putting Powerball Online