(The Center Square) – Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch continues to defend a $40 million line item in the state budget for a school district in his jurisdiction.
The budgeted spending would be for a Proviso schools athletic facility. After Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the $55.2 billion budget, Welch defended the planned spending as an economic driver for his and other communities.
“If helping Proviso and the region I grew up in is gonna cost me an election, I’m willing to do that,” Welch said Monday. “I’m fine with that.”
Welch says he asked Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie how he can help her members. On Wednesday, McCombie said Republicans in the superminority were not given the opportunity to earmark similar funding for their districts.
“We did not have any opportunity,” said McCombie, R-Savanna. “But also, this is not the year for anybody in the General Assembly to be getting pork projects. We can’t afford it.”
One budget analysis shows $240 million in members’ district projects that Republicans say are only going to Democratic lawmakers’ jurisdictions.
Welch said the spending, including in his district, is important.
“There’s $30 million in there for a bridge in Kane and McHenry county, there’s $33 million over a couple of budgets for a sports complex in Tinley Park,” Welch said.
McCombie scoffed at that comparison.
“Any leader to sit there and say that $40 million for a sports complex is similar to a bridge infrastructure rebuild is certainly not understanding the needs of infrastructure in the state of Illinois,” McCombie said.
The budget that begins July 1 is the largest spending plan in state history.
