State comptroller wants bill to further improve rainy day fund

Posted on March 2, 2023
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza. (WJBC file photo)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza is proud of the state’s rainy day fund, but she wants a commitment to regularly put money into it.

“Under current law, the fund is supposed to receive annual deposits when state revenue estimates grow by more than four percent,” Mendoza told a House committee. “However, in the more than twenty years since this law has been in place, reaching this four percent trigger has never materialized. Not once. Because the language is unclear as to how, when, and by whom this number is determined.”

A bill would make a tandem of the governor’s projection of four percent growth and accounts payable of less than $3 billion the trigger for contributions.

“On a $45 billion budget,” Mendoza explained, “we would deposit a total of $450 million between both funds: $225 million to rainy day, and $225 million to pension stabilization.”

HB 2515 has passed the House State Government Administration Committee.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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