BUDGET
- House Republicans call out Pritzker for lack of transparency on budget cuts
State Representatives Amy Elik and Regan Deering held a press conference Thursday to call out Governor JB Pritzker for his political posturing. In September, Governor Pritzker directed his agencies in Executive Order 2025-05 to identify immediate spending reductions, but blamed the Trump Administration rather than his own for the need to rein in spending. Governor Pritzker gave his agencies a deadline of October 23rd to identify areas to cut.
“As a CPA and Spokesperson for the General Services Appropriations committee, I was very much looking forward to seeing where Governor Pritzker’s agencies identified inefficiencies and excessive spending and hoped that just maybe this Executive Order would create a slightly more efficient government,” said Rep. Amy Elik. “But that proved to be wishful thinking. We have not gotten any information whatsoever from agencies about where they planned to cut.”
On October 23rd, House Republican Leader Tony McCombie filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn what work was being done to identify these areas. The Governor’s office denied the request, citing “internal deliberations” as a reason to not make the findings public.
“So today we ask Governor Pritzker – When can we expect these ‘internal deliberations’ to be made public?” asked Rep. Elik. “Illinoisans deserve transparency and accountability. Their government should be honest about the work they are doing for them, not hiding behind political theater and press releases.”
This is the third time that the Governor’s office has asked his agencies to identify areas of potential cuts, however the results of these agency reviews have never been made public.
“As a first-year legislator, I came into the budgeting process hopeful. Hopeful that maybe my Democrat colleagues would recognize the seriousness of our state’s financial crisis and rein in spending where we could,” said Rep. Deering. “Unfortunately, we all saw how that panned out. Another bloated budget signed, spending nearly $2 billion more than the year before. More taxes, more spending, and less opportunities for hardworking Illinoisans.”
“In Springfield, the budgeting process is not based in reality because in the real world, when money gets tight, businesses and families prioritize, stretch, and reform, not rely on hopeful revenue streams to close the gaps,” continued Rep. Deering. “The Illinois families I talk to have to balance their own budgets at home and spend within their means. The government should simply be required to do the same.”
Earlier this year, Rep. Deering filed HB 3792 to require the government to, at the very least, pass a budget that is balanced. The measure remains in the Rules Committee.
“Instead of eyeing a bid for higher office, Governor Pritzker needs to do the job he was elected to here in Illinois. We are ranked at the top of almost every tax list published. And for what? To fund shortfalls in Chicago? To support pay raises for legislators? To give illegal aliens top-of-the-line benefits? It’s shameful that our Governor gets away with smoke and mirror tactics, dangling Executive Orders in the faces of Illinoisans to score cheap political points,” concluded Deering.
Illinois House and Senate Democrats passed a plan during veto session to address the $267 million budget deficit by decoupling from tax incentives included in Trump’s budget. […]
(Pritzker) is expected to sign that plan into law in the coming weeks. Although, GOP leaders argue that decoupling will only hurt the Illinois economy.
“Any time we decouple, we become an outlier,” said Rep. Amy Elik. “We become the state that is immediately known for not being friendly to business, and we can just expect that companies will be looking elsewhere.”
DRUGS
- Federal ban on intoxicating hemp products affects Illinois
Certain types of cannabis (marijuana) and cannabis-based products, such as “gummies,” have been legalized in Illinois for private use. Under the terms of the Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, cannabis and cannabis products can be sold on an adults-only basis through State-licensed dispensaries, which are subject to strict regulation and inspection.
In recent years, an unregulated alternative product, so-called “intoxicating hemp,” has emerged. This product is made up of hemp fibers and hemp extracts. These products, when originally grown as hemp plants, were low-THC and virtually drug-free. However, the products are then chemically treated to create products that have marijuana-like effects. These treated products are widely sold in Illinois under names that include “Delta-8,” “Delta-9,” and many other trade names. The gray-market products are sold in small stores and so-called ‘head shops.”
Until November 2025, the sale of intoxicating hemp has fallen into a legal loophole in Illinois law. The General Assembly has refused to act, but Congress and President Trump have now taken action. Federal legislation, enacted this week and signed into law in Washington, will effectively ban the sale of intoxicating hemp products nationwide. The language of the new federal law is expected to override the lack of State action and should shut down the sale of intoxicating hemp in Illinois.
EDUCATION
- School Report Card shows wide gaps in student achievement
The Illinois School Report Card uses numerical metrics, including anonymized collective test scores, to measure the abilities of Illinois public school and school districts to educate their pupils. The report card is issued by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and uses information that each school district must send to the ISBE as part of their state school aid agreement. The Report Card is public information, and every Illinois resident can look up the numbers generated by their local school and school district.
Some advocates have hopes that Report Card data could begin to show positive results from the specialized intervention activities that have been undertaken in many Illinois schools to help challenged students and students from varying socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. However, the Fall 2025 Report Card presented anonymized data generated from groups of students, and these numbers continued to show wide gaps in student achievement between subgroups of students.
Overall numbers published in Fall 2025 showed higher levels of Illinois “student proficiency” than the numbers generated from data published in the prior 12-month Report Card cycle. However, major changes in calculation methodology implemented for the first time in 2025 meant that the Fall 2025 Report Card figures were not comparable on a student/student basis to the figures published in Fall 2024. The school/school figures are comparable, because they show which schools are doing better than others, and the Fall 2025 school-over-school Report Card showed excellence gaps comparable to the excellence gaps published in Fall 2024.
MASS TRANSIT
- Illinois mass transit bailout includes hidden inflation factor
An analysis shows that a controversialIllinois mass transit bill, enacted in late October by House and Senate Democrats, contains a hidden feature that could further drive up the cost of living in northern Illinois. The language of SB 2111, passed by partisan majorities with the support of Gov. Pritzker, contains a sharp increase in the tolls to be charged upon drivers of heavy trucks on Illinois toll roads. The increase is expected to be 30% on January 1, 2027, with further increases thereafter.
The truckers’ toll hike did not get very much attention during the eye-blink time frame during which the “Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act” was being debated and voted upon during last month’s Veto Session. Most Illinoisans who were aware of the bill were, understandably, especially concerned with the soaring toll fees that will soon by imposed on ordinary and non-commercial Northern Illinois motorists. However, analysts are now pointing out that all of the costs of these heavy-truck increases are likely to be passed along to end-use customers of the goods the trucks deliver. This includes supermarket foods and truck-delivered commodities, such as motor fuel at the pump.
TAXES
- Cook County property tax bills are in the mail
Cook County property tax bills were mailed out on Friday, November 14. They announce the payments that will be due from Chicago-area property owners to the county collector, with payments expected no later than Monday, December 15. The fall 2025 Cook County property tax billing cycle, which is unique to Illinois’ largest county, means that Illinois property tax payment burdens will coincide with the Christmas shopping season.
Cook County, which has one of Illinois’ highest property tax extension rates, uses these extensions to generate heavy bills upon the owners of the county’s more than 1.8 million enumerated properties. The county administers the property tax on behalf of a significant number of “taxing bodies,” entities that are authorized by law the extend a property tax for needed revenue. Each property tax bill lists the government offices that are authorized to levy a tax upon the billed taxpayer. The local public school system is typically at or close to the top of the list in terms of moneys needed as a percentage of the total bill.
Along with other Illinois counties, Cook County bills its property taxpayers twice a year. In addition to coinciding with the Christmas season, the November-December 2025 billing cycle will generate only a short down-time period before the next bills will be sent out in spring 2026. Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, who serves as the county collector, told reporters that computer problems were among the causes responsible for the Cook County tax billing cycle’s timing in late fall 2025.
NORTHERN LIGHTS
- Northern Lights visible across much of Illinois this week
The Northern Lights made a rare appearance in the night sky across much of Illinois this week.
Like the solar winds that have created them, the Northern Lights are an electromagnetic phenomenon. In Illinois, when the Northern Lights are shining, we can see them to the north, and the closer we get to the Earth’s North Magnetic Pole, the more often these lights shine at night. Some people travel as far as Alaska or Iceland to have a chance to see northern lights. However, because of the Sun’s current magnetic field reversal, rare and brilliant displays of northern lights were seen in Illinois this week. The northern lights shone brightly over Illinois on the night of Tuesday, November 11. The displays may continue until the Sun’s geomagnetic activity quiets down, which it is expected to do.