CHICAGO (WREX) � Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced how much the state will be borrowing from the federal government to help with funds lost during the pandemic.
Gov. Pritzker says the state will be borrowing $2 billion in short-term funds to help with what the governor called a "financial storm" in Illinois.
The governor says the state has lost more than $5 billion in revenue from the pandemic and was offered $5 billion from the federal reserve to help make up for the losses. The governor explains why the state isn't taking the additional $3 billion.
"Our collective intention is to repay this line of credit as early as possible after either the awarding of stimulus by Congress or sufficient recovery of state revenues," says Gov. Pritzker. "Adding debt is not a long-term solution to structural imbalance."
The governor says short-term borrowing is a short-term solution and the state is thinking long-term.
"Our long-term fiscal health must also be addressed, but not with short-term borrowing," says Gov. Pritzker. "It's my firm belief that short-term stimulus and near-term revenue recovery must be used to repay short-term borrowing from the federal reserve."
