Illinois has not had a state budget since 2015, and an impasse between the governor and the legislature has led some observers to predict that there won’t be a budget for two more years.

But State Sen. Chuck Weaver, R-Peoria, is more optimistic than that.

“I cannot see us starting the school year without a budget,” Weaver said during an interview with the Star Courier Wednesday.

Weaver said Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has come out against temporary “stopgap” budgets like the one adopted last year, probably would accept such a budget if two of his demands are met — a freeze on local property taxes, and pension reform.

Michael Madigan, speaker of the Illinois House, is opposed to both of those things.

Officials in local governments that depend on property taxes have also questioned the property tax freeze. Weaver said the freeze Rauner is proposing would be temporary.

And if the property tax freeze is approved, Weaver said, there would be a reduction in state mandates — requirements that local governments spend their own money to comply with state regulations.

Also, the senator said, even with a freeze, local governments would still be able to raise property taxes through referendum.

Pension reform is critical, Weaver said. He said Illinois has some $130 billion in obligations in the state’s various employee pension funds. The bulk of the $10 billion deficit the state now faces is pension obligations, he added.

While the partisan divide has kept Illinois from taking on its financial problems, a bipartisan effort is being made to reach a “grand bargain,” a package of bills designed to cut into the deficit.

“The governor wants to see us continue to work on this,” Weaver said, “but the package is not there yet.”

While he likes some of the bills in the grand bargain, he said, “I’m not prepared to support the package, as it only slows down the decline of our state.” What’s needed, he said, are measures that will reduce that decline.

“There will be pain” from any solutions to the budget crisis, Weaver said. He added that Rauner and the legislature must assure that the pain is “shared across all demographics.”

People might not want to accept spending cuts or tax and fee increases that hurt them, but Weaver said, “This is short-term pain, and we’re going to have a healthy state when we’re done.”

A plan to raise the state income tax to the current 3.25 percent to 4.99 percent is on the table, which Weaver said he’d vote against. If a tax increase does go into effect, he said, it should be for no more than five years.

Also under discussion is an increase in the state’s corporate tax rate from 5 to 7 percent.

Weaver also predicted action by the state on education reform. “For me personally, education needs to be the first thing you negotiate in a budget,” he said.

Rauner last year appointed a bipartisan education reform commission, and Weaver thinks at least some of the commission’s recommendations will be adopted.



