The Illinois Senate was poised for a vote late Thursday on a $50.6 billion state spending plan — an altered version of what Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the state legislature’s Democratic leaders had presented as a done deal a day earlier.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.The Senate floor in the Howlett Building during the legislative session in Springfield on May 18, 2023.
Having already blown a self-imposed deadline to pass a budget last week, Senate Democrats were hoping to move the plan Thursday, while House Democrats planned to work into the weekend to send it to Pritzker ahead of a deadline next Wednesday to pass a budget with a simple majority. “There’s also been the issue of federal funding getting cut and organizations looking to the state to fund that, and unfortunately we can’t make up all those gaps,” Croke said. “And I’m sure, for a lot of people, they’re hearing that from their constituents that they want those gaps covered.”
The governor’s office also emphasized a $20 million investment in a new Illinois Grocery Initiative to expand grocery access to urban neighborhoods and rural towns. The budget also includes a roughly $112 million increase in the share of state income tax revenue distributed to local governments, partially satisfying a request from municipal leaders, including new Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
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