McHenry Times

Three Senate Republicans — all representing a portion of McHenry County, hosted a joint end-of-session town hall meeting at Crystal Lake City Hall on Tuesday. They presented various issues and measures including discussions on the FY2022 budget.   

Senate Minority Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods), Assistant Minority Leader Donald DeWitte (R-St. Charles), and State Sen. Craig Wilcox (R-McHenry) reported to approximately 85 forum attendees that in crafting the FY2022 budget, the “sloppy process led to 85% of General Funds allocations unable to be spent until June of 2022.” They presented that while there is some good news about the budget, there is more bad news on the subject.  

“This budget spends over $600 million more than the Governor’s originally proposed FY22 budget,” the senators reported. “Approximately 175 pet programs funded by $50 million in general revenue funds. Approximately 50 pet programs funded by $260 million in federal stimulus funds.”

DeWitte, McConchie, and Wilcox are not the only ones voicing their frustration on the budget.

“This is what 3,000 pages look like,” Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) said. “The final version was filed about 5 minutes before the House began voting on it. There is over a billion dollars in Democratic pork projects, $666 million in new taxes…House Bill 500 hasn’t left the chamber. That’s to block the pay raise and the House is already adjourned.”

State Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington) also lambasted the 2022 budget and how it was crafted.

“With the majority party, what we see is a continuous desire to operate through an expeditious process in the dark of night without any transparency that results in things like this, chaos,” Barickman said. “While countless people were sleeping in the state, you rushed through a $41 billion budget so fatally flawed that you had to use a procedural mechanism that even Speaker Madigan wouldn’t use to rescue it.”

State Rep. Mike Marron (R-Fithian) also called the budget process "ridiculous" and commented that “it's no wonder people have lost faith in us when we do stuff like that.”

Illinois Channel TV executive director Terry Martin also had to say that the state’s more than $42 billion budget wasn’t well thought of, Chambana Sun reported.