Chambana Sun

Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Decatur) recently called out the governor and his Democratic colleagues over their handling of the  state's unemployment trust fund debt.

“People are going to pay,” Rose said. “Because when you get laid off and you can’t put food on your kids’ table and you can't send your kid to college anymore, you’re going to have up to $400 less in benefits because they didn’t fully fund it today. They’ve had $16 billion over the last two years and they couldn’t fix this.”

The debt comes from the Illinois unemployment insurance trust fund. WTTW News reported the state is $4.5 billion in debt and is incurring interest.

Senate Bill 2803 passed both the Senate (33-15) and the House (68-43) along partisan lines and was signed by the governor on March 25. The bill authorizes putting government COVID funding toward  paying off part of the unemployment insurance trust fund debt

Rep. Seth Lewis (R-Bartlett) expressed concerns about handling the debt with the American Rescue Plan Act funds.

“Instead of using the money our state has from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to pay off our unemployment insurance trust fund debt in full, the supermajority decided to leave over half of that debt remaining,” Lewis said. “This will result in tax hikes on jobs and decreased benefits. I am disappointed that, despite there being a common-sense solution, this is the path that was taken. I hope the General Assembly can move forward and work together to implement fiscal responsibility in Springfield that does not hurt workers and businesses.”

The bill makes supplemental appropriations from the Pension Stabilization Fund for financing the unfunded liabilities of the General Assembly Retirement System, the Judges Retirement System of Illinois, the State Employees’ Retirement System of Illinois, the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois, and the State Universities Retirement System. It also appropriates $250 million from the General Revenue Fund to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission.