State lawmakers drop budget bill — and barbecue plans — as overtime session stretches to Memorial Day

SPRINGFIELD — After a week of behind-the-scenes negotiations that’ll send lawmakers into overtime, Democrats filed the first of three budget bills on Friday afternoon and hammered out the details of a $1.1 billion revenue package that includes a series of tax proposals sought by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

The Illinois Senate filed a 3,374-page appropriations bill about 5 p.m., but amendments are anticipated. The measure includes $182 million for migrants and covers $440 million in health care costs for undocumented people. And as all budgets do, it includes quirky costs, such as $1 million to move the very expensive "Monument with Standing Beast" sculpture — also nicknamed ‘‘Snoopy in a Blender’’ — from the James R. Thompson Center to be restored and stored.

Senate Democrats remained in a lengthy caucus on Friday night and could take up the appropriations measure as soon as Saturday morning. Lawmakers must also file and pass separate budget implementation and revenue bills. The timeline so far sets lawmakers up to be in session on Memorial Day — three days after a self-imposed deadline to pass the budget.

But the real deadline is next Friday. Any bills passed after May 31 require a three-fifths majority for the law to take effect within the next 12 months.

While revenue sore spots were a focal point of many meetings among top Democrats, the governor’s office and stakeholders, it appears the governor is poised to get the revenue he had sought in his own budget proposal, with some concessions and some additions. In total, the revenue package is estimated at $1.1 billion, which includes $200 million brought in by an assessment from managed care organizations, or MCOs.

The revenue plan counted on a $200 million tax hike on sportsbooks, and negotiations centered on a graduated tax rate system. That was intended to appease concerns in the Democratic caucus that more than doubling the current flat rate would kneecap Illinois’ booming sports betting market.

Sources said the push was to collect more from corporate giants like FanDuel and DraftKings than sportsbooks associated with smaller casinos.

Another politically thorny Pritzker provision is also expected to be in the revenue measure — capping the discount that retailers receive for collecting sales tax at $1,000 per month. The governor's office contends it would mostly impact larger retailers and generate another $101 million for state coffers.

Budgeteers tried to appease opponents from the retail industry by prohibiting processing fees on the sales tax portion of electronic transactions. Currently, financial companies can charge fees on the entire transaction, which includes the goods purchased as well as the tax.

A plan pushed by state Sen. Cristina Castro, D-Elgin, is also expected to be included in the revenue measure. Castro requested a tax on third-party entities that resell large blocks of hotel rooms but avoid paying the standard hotel operator’s room occupation tax. Her initiative is expected to bring in about $50 million.

None of the tax and budget chatter went down well with Republicans leaders, who slammed their opponents across the aisle for shutting them out of spending talks.

“These are tax increases that all Illinoisans across the state are going to feel and pay,” Illinois Senate Minority Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said after receiving a short briefing Friday morning from Pritzker, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, and Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park.

The revenue plan also maintains Pritzker’s proposal to extend limits on the amount of operating losses corporations can write off on their income taxes, a maneuver estimated to generate another $526 million for the state.

That’s on top of the sports betting tax hike, which takes a bigger cut from an industry that netted more than $1 billion in 2023 — just the third full year of legal wagering.