Illinois Valley Times

Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) recently criticized Gov. Pritzker's plan to deal with the unemployment insurance trust fund deficit and ending up in a situation that she describes as completely 'avoidable.'

"This was avoidable. The governor and his Democratic allies in the General Assembly had nearly a year to allocate federal ARPA dollars to fix the growing UI trust fund and the deficit that it had," Rezin said at a press conference. "Instead of being fiscally responsible and prioritizing our trust fund, they waited and decided to appropriate our one-time federal dollars on other programs and proposals, including $1 billion on personal pork projects in their districts."  

On March 25, Gov. J. B. Pritzker signed SB2803 into a law allocating $2.7 billion from ARPA funds to pay a portion of the $4.5 billion unemployment insurance trust fund debt, leaving the fund with $1.8 billion in outstanding debt.

"The federal government designed ARPA to be used for COVID-19 relief and to help with economic recovery," Rezin said. "They approved these funds to be used on items like the UI trust fund. This prompted 31 states to use their ARPA dollars to fully fund their own states and to replenish and get their deficits to zero. Meanwhile here in Illinois we waited till the last minute to allocate to the UI trust fund and the whole time the deficit grew larger and larger and now we finally decided to use ARPA funds for the trust fund, we still are left with a $1.8 billion deficit."

Sen. Don DeWitte (R-St. Charles) says the legislation will raise taxes.

"This action will lead to the largest tax increase on business in the state of Illinois in this state's history," DeWitte said, according to WTTW. "Employers who have been treated with absolute disregard throughout this pandemic will literally be left holding the bag, and will be responsible for filing the remaining deficit to the Unemployment Insurance Trust fund.".

The General Assembly has until April 8 to pass the Fiscal Year 2023 budget, which includes the funding for the unemployment insurance trust fund.