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, D-Oak Park.
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 plan 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.
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