Gov. J.B. Pritzker has spent months warning Illinoisans about the economic headwinds coming from Washington, pointing to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and federal funding cuts.
But his actions turn his words into political rhetoric: his $55.2 billion state budget set a record but failed to put any money aside for a true emergency.
Illinois has the nation’s second-worst funded emergency savings account, known as the “rainy day” fund. Even after the pandemic showed how expensive a statewide crisis can become, the governor chose to spend big on the budget this year while contributing nothing to the emergency fund.
As Pritzker expanded the size and cost of government – boosting taxes $1,237 per Illinoisan – the relative security offered by the rainy-day fund shrank. That’s a real threat to programs Illinoisans rely on during extreme economic downturns.
State lawmakers should eliminate the current pause on contributions and increase monthly rainy-day fund investments. Pritzker should push for those savings if he truly believes Trump is a fiscal threat.
Illinois’ rainy-day fund could only support operations for less than 15 days as of 2024, according to the most recent data from Pew Research. That was the second-worst reserve ratio in the U.S. The national average was over 57 days, but experts recommend 60 days of operating funds.
Lawmakers contributed an additional $166 million to the emergency fund in 2025, bringing the total balance $2.35 billion by the end of the fiscal year. The emergency fund is now technically at its strongest level since it was created in 2000, thanks to more than $2 billion in deposits from Pritzker fueled by one-time federal pandemic relief.
But the concern isn’t whether we’re saving more, it’s whether we’re saving enough.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza has long pushed for a $5 billion target, about 10% of general revenues and more than twice the projected balance at the end of June 2025. Illinois should have about $9 billion socked away to survive the 60 days recommended by the Government Finance Officers Association.
Rather than growing the emergency fund in 2025, lawmakers suspended the $45 million a month they were saving and put the money toward operational spending. Pritzker’s team also created a $100 million “flexible fund” to address the Trump policies, which lacks the safeguards and transparency of a true emergency reserve.
Joe Ferguson, president of the nonpartisan Civic Federation, said the one-year pause in rainy-day fund contributions is “absolutely a mistake.”
“We are going to need to go to some last-case resorts in all likelihood when we understand the federal impact, and this was not the moment to go to that well,” Ferguson told Capitol News Illinois.
This kind of fiscal planning puts working Illinoisans at unnecessary risk. When the state runs out of emergency funds, it often turns to service cuts, tax hikes or borrowing – all of which hit working families hardest.
Between the pandemic years 2020 and 2022 alone, 21 new or higher taxes were implemented in Illinois, even as the state received tens of billions in federal aid and collected higher than expected revenues.
The answer doesn’t lie in using emergency funds to stave off a predictable drop in revenues and funding. Pritzker has had months to prepare and a record-high budget to work with. But instead of managing more money than any Illinois governor has ever had before, he is spending money intended to save the state in an emergency.
Emergency dollars should be preserved for true emergencies – just like Illinois families must have reserves for when the roof springs a leak or the car breaks down. Similarly, state government must have the reserves to operate when there’s a natural disaster, recession or another pandemic.
The rainy-day fund will still grow modestly through indirect sources such as cannabis taxes and investment income this year even without the skipped contributions. Plus, Pritzker deserves credit for boosting the emergency fund during the pandemic.
But halting state emergency savings while expanding spending and predicting mayhem is irresponsible, especially for someone who is trying to replace Trump. Pritzker and lawmakers should eliminate the pause and keep investing in the state’s long-term financial stability.
