Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed his fifth budget — a $50.4 billion spending plan that Democrats called “balanced in every sense,” which included a line-item correction lowering proposed pay raises to the tune of more than $192,000.
Pritzker signed the measure at the Christopher House, an early education center in the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood, flanked by Democrats, including Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Illinois Senate President Don Harmon.
The governor has traveled the state this week — from Freeport to Moline to Peoria and Quincy — to tout the budget’s funding of his Smart Start initiative, a focal point of his 2024 budget aimed at improving access to preschool, increasing funding for child care providers and investing in early childhood facilities. The budget includes $250 million for the first year of the multiyear plan.
It was hard for Republicans to criticize the Democratic governor’s budget proposal back in February because it so heavily invested in children and education. But they found ways to critique the final spending plan, calling it unbalanced and one of the largest spending plans in the state’s history.
Pritzker said the budget — which passed both chambers with no Republican support — is proof that he kept his 2018 campaign promise to restore fiscal responsibility to the state after years of mismanagement.
“Here we are four years later, and just look at what at we’ve accomplished. We eliminated overdue bills, paid down $10.5 billion in debt, including pension debt. Our once-empty Rainy Day Fund is now rising to $2 billion. Our GDP has surpassed $1 trillion, and we have more jobs available than ever before. And independently, and if you don’t love all of that,” Pritzker said to applause, “independently, each of the major credit rating agencies has given us multiple credit upgrades.”
The governor’s office said line-item reductions of $192,700 were made after a review found that cost-of-living pay raises granted in the budget to constitutional officers, legislators and appointed officers of the executive branch exceeded 5%, which they said was unconstitutional.
The budget would have increased legislator pay for the fiscal year that begins July 1 to nearly $90,000. Earlier this year, legislators approved a salary bump from $72,906 to $85,000 in a supplemental appropriations bill. Language had been copied from an appropriations bill — but when the governor’s office did its own review, it found the raises would have exceeded 5%, which is not allowed under state law.
“It is evident that the errors in the amounts to compensate all of these officers were inadvertent and that the General Assembly intended for the amounts set forth in Senate Bill 250 simply to implement the salaries provided by law,” Pritzker wrote in a line item reduction message to lawmakers.
Illinois House Republican Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, called that change “paltry.”
“While this change may make it constitutional, it does not make it right,” McCombie said in a statement after the budget signing. “House Republicans will continue to hold the majority party accountable to not only our constitutional rights but also to Illinois taxpayers.”
The budget passage came a week after Democratic lawmakers blew a self-declared deadline, in part because of behind-the-scenes negotiations about funding health care for undocumented people, which ultimately received $550 million as part of a larger Medicaid appropriation through the Illinois Department of Human Services. Another $45 million went to help the city of Chicago continue to fund the city’s migrant crisis.
It also includes $350 million for the state’s K-12 evidence-based school funding formula, $100 million in additional MAP grant funding for higher education and a $100 million increase for public universities. The additional funding for the MAP grant program will allow anyone at or below the median income to attend community college for free.
The funding for community colleges was also increased by $19.4 million.
Welch said the budget shows Illinois can be both a responsible and compassionate state.
“This budget, we have proven yet again that we can do both,” Welch said. “We can be fiscally responsible and compassionate.”
Republicans, who railed against Democrats for prioritizing their own budget needs, ultimately voted no on the spending plan for various reasons, including being left out in parts of the negotiation process. Others said they couldn’t support the budget because it included just a $2.50-an-hour wage increase for providers for developmentally disabled people — despite the Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities asking for a $4-an-hour wage increase.
Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said there were some joint priorities in the budget, including funding for education and the developmentally disabled. But he criticized the inclusion of health care for undocumented people.
“The Governor’s choice to pay for this entirely state-funded free health care program for undocumented people over any meaningful investment in our business community highlights the stark contrast between our priorities,” Curran said in a statement.
Other Republicans were miffed it didn’t included Invest in Kids, a tax credit scholarship program for private schools. For now, with no legislative action in place, the program will sunset at the end of the year.
But Pritzker on Wednesday told reporters there’s still time for the scholarship program to be considered during the fall veto session.
