Budget vote brings General Assembly’s 2023 spring session to a close
Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth,
D-Peoria, presents a budget bill on the House floor early Saturday
morning before lawmakers adjourned for the summer around 3 a.m. (Capitol
News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
House gives final OK to $50.6 billion spending plan
By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – The 2023 spring legislative session came to an end in
the early hours of Saturday morning after the Illinois House gave its
approval to a $50.6 billion spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year
that begins July 1.
The 73-38 party-line vote came around 2:30 a.m. after lengthy debate
during which Democrats called the budget “balanced” and “compassionate”
while Republicans claimed it masks hidden costs and fails to address the
state’s most urgent priorities.
“This budget reaffirms our shared commitment to fiscal responsibility
while making transformative investments in the children and families of
Illinois that will be felt for years to come,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in
a statement after the vote. “I look forward to signing this budget
making childcare and education more accessible, healthcare more
affordable, and our state’s business and economic position even
stronger.”
Lawmakers had to jump through some procedural hoops to meet
constitutional requirements while still passing the bill in time to
leave Springfield for the bulk of Memorial Day weekend. That’s because
the Illinois Constitution requires bills to be read into the record by
title on three different days before a vote can be taken.
The Senate passed the budget bill late Thursday night, sending it to
the House where it got its first reading shortly thereafter. The House
reconvened Friday evening, gave the budget a brief hearing before
reading it into the record for a second time, and finally adjourned
shortly after midnight Saturday morning. Eight minutes later, the House
reconvened yet again for a final vote.
The final spending plan looked substantially like the one Pritzker
outlined in his February budget proposal. It contains several new
initiatives he asked for, including investments in pre-K through 12 th grade education, child welfare, combating poverty and homelessness, and increasing state spending on higher education.
git a
“Smart Start Illinois” is a multi-year plan that aims to make
childcare and preschool available to every three- and four-year-old
whose family wants those services. For the upcoming fiscal year, that
includes $250 million to increase the number of preschool slots
available, stabilize the early childhood workforce and expand the Early
Intervention and Home Visiting Programs.
The budget also includes Pritzker’s “Home Illinois” initiative – an
$85 million increase in funding to support homelessness prevention,
affordable housing, outreach and other programs aimed at reducing
homelessness.
It also includes a $100 million increase in funding for public
universities and community colleges, along with a $100 million increase
in Monetary Award Program financial aid grants for low-income college
students. Pritzker has said that will effectively make a two-year
community college education available tuition- and fee-free for every
working-class student in Illinois.
And it includes a $350 million increase in the Evidence Based Funding
formula for K-12 education, the minimum amount called for under the law
that lawmakers passed in 2018.
“We should not have to choose between being responsible for being a
responsible state and being a compassionate one,” Speaker Pro Tem Jehan
Gordon-Booth, D-Peoria, the top Democratic budget negotiator, said on
the House floor. “We can do both. I dare say we have to do both.”
House Republicans, however, had announced earlier in the day that
they would not provide any votes to pass the bill, calling it “one of
the largest spends in Illinois history.”
Rep. Norine Hammond, R-Macomb, the lead budgeteer for House
Republicans, during debate on the budget early Saturday morning.
Hammond said she had been locked out of the budget negotion process by
majority party Democrats. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
“Our shared priorities, surprisingly, were not included and our
offers to work with Democrats were ignored,” House Republican Leader
Tony McCombie, of Savanna, said during an early afternoon news
conference. “We cannot trust the majority party with more money when all
they offer is so little in return to tangible benefits for Illinois
families.”
Republicans cited several concerns with the budget, such as its
continued funding of Medicaid-like health care for undocumented
immigrants aged 42 and over, which has grown well past original
projections. GOP members also objected Democrats’ refusal to address the
Jan. 1, 2024 sunset of a $75 million tax credit program that funds
scholarships for private and religious schools.
Republicans also disapproved of the budget package’s allowance for
the automatic inflation-determined growth of lawmakers’ base salary for
next year from $85,000 to nearly $90,000 – a cost of living adjustment
that McCombie argued violates the Illinois Constitution. They also
criticized the budget’s failure to address needed funding for pay raises
for state workers whose union contracts are up for renewal in the
upcoming fiscal year.
“In our eyes, this isn't a budget that provides for the future of
Illinois,” Rep. Norine Hammond, R-Macomb, the House Republicans’ chief
budget negotiator, said Friday afternoon ahead of the final vote.
But Democrats countered that the budgets they have pushed through
since Pritzker became governor in 2019 have not only been balanced but
have resulted in multiple credit upgrades from the three major rating
agencies.
“If you want to vote for credit upgrades for the state of Illinois,
vote aye,” Gordon-Booth said in her closing speech just before the final
vote. “If you want to vote to fund the public school children in your
district, vote aye. If you want to vote to fund the cities, towns and
villages in your district, vote aye. If you want to vote to give low
income and middle-income college students and your district the
opportunity to go to college without being overburdened with college
debt, vote aye.”
Passage of the budget allowed the House to adjourn its 2023 spring regular session.
Rep. John Cabello (R-Machesney Park) waits at his desk with
a printed out version of the Fiscal Year 2024 budget. (Capitol News
Illinois photo by Peter Hancock)
According to legislative records, more than 560 bills passed both
chambers and will eventually be sent to Pritzker’s desk. Lawmakers are
not scheduled to return to Springfield until their traditional two-week
fall veto session, which has not yet been formally scheduled.
Before the 2:30 a.m. vote on the spending plan, House members also
voted on eight other bills Friday night. Those measures included a
controversial bill that would give Ameren Illinois, the electric utility
for the southern half of the state, the “right of first refusal” on the
construction of transmission lines.
Another pair of bills that received only Democratic votes concern
health insurance – one would give the state’s Department of Insurance
the power to review and reject insurance rates, and the other would
create a new state-based insurance marketplace.
A few of the late-night bills received unanimous votes in the House,
including one that would create a tax credit program aimed at eventually
attracting one of the six to 10 “hydrogen hubs” the federal government
hopes to place around the U.S. as hydrogen clean energy technology
continues to evolve.
After lengthy debate on the budget package, a bipartisan majority of
House members approved one final measure before adjourning, which would
permanently establish a previously experimental diversion program for
first-time gun offenders. The pilot program was only open to those under
the age of 21, but all first-time offenders would be eligible for the
permanent program. It was also modified to allow for greater
prosecutorial and judicial discretion in those cases.
Hannah Meisel contributed.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service
covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers,
radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois
Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with
major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and
Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
Peter Hancock
Peter was one of the founding reporters with Capitol News
Illinois. A native of the Kansas City area, he has degrees in political
science and education from the University of Kansas.
Other posts by Peter Hancock