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 Good afternoon to the esteemed lawmakers who are joining us
remotely, and to all the people of Illinois, who have endured so much this past
year. Joining me today are two people essential to my work as governor: the
incomparable lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, and my remarkable wife,
First Lady M.K. Pritzker.
As you’ve probably noticed, this State of the State speech looks a lot different
than it has in the past. Standing inside a crowded room to deliver a formal
address is not possible right now – nor would it be appropriate. But the people
of Illinois need to hear from their Governor about where we are and where we’re
headed – regardless of how unprecedented the times.
Nearly no one alive today has lived through anything that could have prepared
them for the past year. To gain perspective on these last 12 months, I looked
for an anchoring moment in our history – a moment that can remind us of what we
can endure and survive together.
So today I’m coming to you from the Illinois State fairgrounds in Springfield.
You see, over one hundred years ago, in October of 1918, a 100-bed emergency
make-shift hospital was constructed here to care for Illinoisans afflicted with
what became known as the Spanish Flu – because there was no more room at the
hospitals. Doctors and nurses at St. John’s Springfield hospital, and those here
at the fairgrounds alike were desperate. It seemed that as quickly as patients
came in, they were dying even faster. And everything was made all the more dire
because so many healthcare professionals were overseas on the fighting fields of
World War One even as this microscopic enemy raged on the home front.
One of the young nurses was a native of Loami, Illinois – a woman by the name of
Hallie Staley Kinter. Many years later, when she was in her 80’s, Hallie
recounted to oral historians at the University of Illinois how she and another
nurse had worked together and about their pandemic experience.
Hallie said, “In 1918 we had the flu epidemic. Which was a very difficult time.
The doctors hardly knew what it was when it first came. And you’d have to have
the windows open and the rooms were so awfully cold at night and, well, it was
hard. Of course the other nurse, she went down with the flu, and then I followed
shortly after. I made it through, but she died. And I always felt bad about that
– she didn’t make it, but I did.”
Last September, I hosted Memorial Services for those who’ve lost loved ones and
friends in this current COVID pandemic. It was attended in person by a few of
the family members of Illinoisans who had died of COVID so far and tens of
thousands tuned in to attend remotely. I knew that the pandemic was far from
over. But I also knew that people had not had a chance to collectively grieve.
Indeed, so many Illinoisans who have lost family and friends to this terrible
disease were not even able to have the full funeral services they might normally
have had to celebrate the lives and mourn the loss of their loved ones.
So on a beautiful early September night, in the Cathedral at the University of
Chicago, Lieutenant Governor Stratton and I bore witness to the grief of several
Illinois families – who came to speak to the memories of those who were loved
and lost – and to represent our collective sorrow.
One of the last individuals to give testimony that night was Lawrence LeBlanc,
whose wife of 23 years, Joyce Pacubas-LeBlanc was an ICU nurse at the University
of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. Much like Hallie Kinter a hundred years
earlier, Joyce rushed in where others feared to tread. Her husband said, “When
the pandemic started, I asked her to please stay home. But she said no. That was
her calling, that’s why she joined the nursing profession.”
Joyce, a nurse for more than 30 years, passed away from COVID-19 on April 23rd,
2020.
About 23,500 Illinoisans died from the Spanish Flu. As of today, we have lost
more than 20,000 Illinoisans to COVID-19.
The man who preceded me in this job by a century, Governor Lowden, issued a
proclamation in October of 1918 telling residents, “It is advisable to prevent
all unnecessary social gatherings for the present.” The Illinois Director of
Public Health at the time, Dr. St. Clair Drake, warned citizens that “every
community in Illinois will be affected by influenza before the epidemic
subsides.”
Everything old always seems to become new again, and despite all we’ve learned
and discovered about medicine and science in a hundred years, fighting a raging
pandemic successfully continues to rely on the selflessness and sacrifice of our
citizens. Just as our predecessors did a century ago, we’ve had to shutter
businesses, cancel public gatherings, close schools and theaters and restaurants
and ask our citizens to wear masks and limit human contact.
All of this was in the pursuit of one goal and one goal only – saving as many
lives as possible.
And we have done that. Because of all of you and what you’ve been willing to
sacrifice, Illinois never ran out of hospital beds or ventilators or doctors to
care for patients, even when our peer states did. Despite being one of the
largest states in the country, we have one of the lowest transmission rates of
COVID-19. Ours is among the most accessible testing infrastructures in the
nation, even deploying mobile sites to over 450 communities around Illinois.
But the price we’ve paid to save lives has been enormous, and we do not honor
sacrifice when we do not recognize it. We’ve had to go an entire year separated
from people that we love. In order to preserve our lives, for a time we’ve had
to forgo our way of life.
Babies have been born that grandparents have never been able to hold. Couples
have married without lifelong friends beside them. Students have had to graduate
without a handshake or a hug. Grief, an emotion that thrives on loneliness, has
been able to escape the salve of community.
Businesses built painstakingly over generations have had to shutter their doors.
Communities that had already suffered greatly because of disinvestment and
discrimination have seen their challenges multiply.
And the tiny joys that fill the cracks in our lives have been taken from us –
the songs of a choir, a full Thanksgiving table, a high five after a workout, a
prom dress, a hotdog at a Cubs game, a bucket list trip, a smile not hidden by a
mask, a long night of laughter with good friends at a favorite restaurant. As a
result, we are all struggling together right now.
It’s ok to admit to feeling overwhelmed.
It’s OK to admit that we have a new appreciation for the true fullness of life,
and that we ache to return to the way the world was just a year ago.
But our grief needs to help us embrace the most important lesson of the past
year – that the best way to make our way in this world is together.
With 2021, comes new hope. We have a vaccine that works and that starting today,
is being distributed right here on the Illinois State Fairgrounds. With the
patience of Job, we continue awaiting our supply of vaccine that will meet our
demand. As that happens, when it’s your turn – I implore you to step up and get
vaccinated.
Illinois is a state of over 12 and a half million people. Although it’s not
enough to meet demand, this week the federal government is providing us with
405,000 vaccine doses, and we’re administering all of them. Local health
departments, led by nurses and frontline workers, are our health care heroes,
from Jackson County to Winnebago County, across all 102 of our counties, and
they’re running on all cylinders. As a result, for the month of February,
Illinois has been the vaccination leader among the 10 most populous states in
the country.
Under the incomparable leadership of Dr. Ngozi Ezike, supported by doctors and
nurses across the state, Illinois has vaccinated over 11 percent of its
residents. We are working every day to reach people of color, where historical
disinvestment makes them both more vulnerable to the disease and more skeptical
of the vaccine. Of course, there is still much work to be done – especially as
the federal supply of vaccine remains lower than demand.
But with a new President who is willing to push all the levers of government to
increase vaccination supply, we will get closer and closer to getting enough
immunity among our population so we can keep our families healthy, return to
normalcy, once again prosper and thrive.
I have always believed that our economic recovery both as a nation and as a
state goes hand in hand with our recovery from the virus. I certainly had no
expectation when I became Governor, that we would spend all of this time
battling an invisible enemy together.
I had bolder plans for our state budget than what I am going to present to you
today. It would be a lie to suggest otherwise. But as all our families have had
to make hard choices over the last year, so too does state government. And right
now, we need to pass a balanced budget that finds the right equilibrium between
tightening our belts and preventing more hardships for Illinoisans already
carrying a heavy load.
To my colleagues in the General Assembly: our choices have never been easy. But
more than ever, the decisions we make together in the coming months must protect
our working families and those most in need, so many of whom feel like they’re
at the end of their rope right now.
If there is anything the last year should have taught us, it is that we need a
reliably well-funded government. Many on the far right have made their name in
politics by touting cuts to unemployment programs and health insurance coverage.
They called anyone who sought unemployment benefits “takers.” They demonize
state employees. And they fought unrelentingly to eliminate any state or federal
funds designed to make healthcare more accessible, equitable and fair.
Throughout the pandemic, they have encouraged businesses to defy health
guidelines, spread conspiracy theories about COVID deaths, and fought mask
guidelines tooth and nail.
Amidst the tragedy of this pandemic, they have lobbied against the federal
government providing relief to Illinoisans, ignoring the life-changing economic
pain of real working families.
In essence, they eliminated the fire department, burnt down the house, and
poured gas on the flames — and now they’re asking why we’re not doing more to
prevent fires.
In a normal year, I might have more patience for their hypocrisy. But this is
not a normal year.
There’s room for honest and well-meaning debate about where and how cuts and new
investments should be made, but anyone who calls themselves a public servant
must acknowledge the truth: the role of the government in a crisis is to end the
crisis as quickly as possible, and limit the pain the crisis inflicts on the
people we serve.
To that end, I began working on next year’s budget by taking executive action to
make cuts this year that will have the least impact on services while preventing
the need for additional revenue from hardworking families, eliminating $700
million in spending in fiscal year 2021 alone. Two months ago I asked
Republicans in the General Assembly for their proposals to close this year’s
budget deficit. I was met with silence. Apparently their idea of bipartisanship
ends when hard choices must be made.
I won’t pretend that these tough decisions don’t have a human impact, because we
are operating within one of the most bare-bones government infrastructures in
the country. While the right-wing carnival barkers have used our state as a
laboratory to undermine essential public investments, the fact of the matter is
Illinois state government spends less money per person than the majority of
states in this nation.
Twenty years ago Illinois had about 30% more employees than it does today. We
had 40% more Illinois State Police to protect the 58,000 square miles of our
state. Our Environmental Protection Agency had nearly 60% more people protecting
our air and water. And state government’s share of spending on education has
steadily dropped to the lowest in the nation – leading your cities and your
counties and your school districts to impose suffocatingly high property taxes
in order to maintain quality public education. Government cannot be bloated, but
it must have the resources to provide for the needs of our state’s residents.
We live in a challenging moment in so many ways, not the least of which are the
choices that must be made to balance our state budget in the midst of economic
hardship for everyday Illinoisans.
The general funds budget I present today for Fiscal Year 2022 spends $1.8
billion less than FY2021. It reflects $400 million in additional cuts to
appropriations, a hiring freeze, flat operational spending, full required
pension payments, and the closure of unaffordable corporate loopholes. All in
all, it reduces spending to meet projected revenues.
I’d like to discuss some of the major principles and pillars of this budget with
you.
I started with the premise that hardworking families should not have to pay more
when they’re stretched the most thin. I want middle class Illinoisans to pay
lower income taxes, not higher. So this budget does not propose an
across-the-board tax increases.
In this unprecedented time, I believe we must fully support the agencies on the
frontlines of the COVID-19 response — agencies that have been hollowed out
deeply over the past two decades: the Departments of Public Health, Human
Services, Veteran’s Affairs, and Employment Security. Saving lives and
livelihoods as this pandemic rages on is front and center.
With that in mind, I’m asking the General Assembly to pass a standalone bill
THIS YEAR to immediately direct $60 million of funding to the Department of
Employment Security to help meet the unprecedented demand. It builds upon work
we have already done this year, and will support new call center positions
throughout the state, help run the newly created federal unemployment programs,
and upgrade the technology to more efficiently get this critical work done. And
in the coming year, I ask that you support an additional $73 million for the
unemployment system.
Support for small businesses must also be a priority. So many
individuals lost their livelihoods because of the pandemic. Small businesses
like restaurants and bars had to make enormous sacrifices to keep us all safe.
Those sacrifices did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. But when the federal PPP
program offered a lifeline with forgivable loans, large corporations gobbled up
most of that money first, leaving small businesses with nearly nothing. That’s
why Illinois did something most states didn’t do: we used a big portion of
federal CARES Act dollars to deliver the nation’s largest small business
assistance program.
We invested $275 million toward Business Interruption Grants,
distributing it to over 9,000 small businesses in over 600 cities and towns
statewide – that’s money for rent, for payroll, for PPE that doesn’t have to be
paid back.
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It’s money that allowed Michael McDonald and Okema
Battle, the brother-sister co-owners of Wood N’ Hog Barbecue, in
Champaign, to keep every team member on payroll who wanted to stay
there – to keep their doors open and their dream alive. And friends
in Champaign will tell you thank the heavens, because that barbecue
is excellent.
Illinois’ Business Interruption Grant program also allowed Brew Brew
Coffee and Tea, a family-owned business in Chicago, to bring back
staff and re-open its Pilsen location, closed in the early days of
the pandemic. And another grant has helped Deborah Fell from Urbana
keep her quilting business afloat.
In a moment when one third of small businesses across the nation are
temporarily or permanently closed, Illinois’ BIG program doesn’t
replace the need for more federal assistance. But it has given
thousands of Illinois businesses a fighting chance. More than 80
percent of BIG program funds went to our smallest businesses, 40
percent went to minority-owned businesses, and nearly half went to
restaurants, bars and taverns – an industry that along with travel
and tourism has had to sacrifice the most in this crisis. I
particularly want to thank Leaders Gordon-Booth and Lightford and
Rep. Lisa Hernandez and Sen. Aquino for their tireless efforts to
help make sure that these funds reached the small businesses that
needed them most.
That’s why we propose setting aside a share of new federal dollars
for those grants to small businesses. Entrepreneurs are the folks
who create most of the jobs in our state. Their businesses are key
to our economic revitalization, and they’re the most immediate way
for us to help those that are shouldering the heaviest burden from
COVID-19. While the federal government writes billion-dollar checks
to big businesses, here in Illinois we’re standing up for small
businesses — or as I like to say — the big businesses of the future.
The safety net must also be protected. In May, I worked with members
of the General Assembly like Senator Robert Peters and
Representative Delia Ramirez to deliver the nation’s largest housing
assistance program, providing $324 million in emergency housing
assistance to more than 55,600 renters and homeowners across the
state, keeping people in their homes and stabilizing the market for
landlords. We dedicated a record $275 million to help pay utility
bills for those suffering COVID-related income loss. Homelessness is
never acceptable, but in a pandemic it’s downright barbaric.
And when the pandemic interrupted schools and senior care, we put
food on the tables of those who needed a helping hand, delivering
over 10 million meals to our seniors at home and over 113 million
meals to school-aged children and their families. No senior citizen
and no child should ever go hungry in this country. Indeed, nobody
should.
This budget also preserves my increased investments
in education, which is foundational to a strong economy and a
vibrant future. And I fully incorporated the work of Senator
Lightford and Representative Ammons to make education in Illinois
more equitable.
In March of 2020, I promised schools that they wouldn’t lose funding
because of the pandemic, and this budget keeps that promise. The
federal government has made extraordinary efforts to support schools
during this time, with $2.8 billion allocated to schools thus far –
and more is expected. Thanks to this funding, we can protect our
K-12 investments at current spending levels. No schools will have to
reduce spending, and they can instead focus on meeting the needs of
students who have tried to learn in a chaotic and trying time. The
increased funding from the federal government will help us overcome
the learning loss so many children experienced during this pandemic.
I call on school districts across the state to use those additional
funds to follow the Biden plan for restoring safe in-person learning
and to address COVID learning loss not only this spring but into the
summer too.
Higher education – which was cut deeply by my predecessor and his
General Assembly allies during their self-inflicted budget impasse –
is fully protected in this budget proposal. Our colleges and
universities are facing so many other challenges that we should not
ask them to take on more. Federal COVID relief funding will provide
$740 million to post-secondary institutions in Illinois, so the most
important place to invest in higher education is in expanding
college access for those smart kids who can least afford it, which
is why I propose a $28 million increase to MAP grants – to be sure,
less than the $50 million I proposed last year, but enough to allow
thousands more Illinois students to get a scholarship.
And for our youngest children, Illinois is the best in the nation
during this pandemic in supporting childcare providers and the
children who attend them. Illinois has created the nation’s largest
childcare grant program, with $290 million going directly to 5,000
childcare centers and homes in 95 counties, allowing them to stay
afloat over this challenging year – places like Marcy Mendenhall’s
Skip-A-Long Child Development Services.
Skip-A-Long has three childcare centers on the Illinois side of the
Mississippi, and one center across the river in Iowa. When the
pandemic hit, only one of those states offered consistent,
science-based guidance on how to best protect children, families and
staff. Soon after, that same state started paying Skip-A-Long for
all the kids enrolled in its centers, not just who showed up every
day, so they could keep their staff in the most turbulent time. And
that very same state made it possible for all essential workers to
enroll in its Child Care Assistance Program so that their kids had a
safe place to go when they couldn’t stay home – and reduced parental
co-pays for the program to just $1 a month. What Illinois has done
to preserve childcare and reduce the burden on working families has
been rightly held up as a model for the nation. And it has meant
that even with all the terrible tolls of this pandemic, more than
100,000 of Illinois’ youngest families had one less thing to worry
about every day.
In short: even absent necessary federal action, Illinois gave our
all to keeping an entire industry alive – an industry that has the
power to make or break women’s participation in the workforce – in a
way that other states failed to do.
And as we gain national attention for our leading efforts to support
childcare – and support working parents – this budget will make
additional investments by protecting our early childhood block
grant, expanding early intervention programs, and directing $350
million in federal funds directly to childcare providers. And,
thanks to the insights and hard work of my Early Childhood Funding
Commission, we’ll use some of the recent federal funding to build
community-level supports for connecting young families to the
services they need as we emerge from this pandemic.
Telecommuting, telehealth, remote learning, videoconferencing — this
pandemic laid bare the need for reliable broadband across the state.
Fortunately, in 2019, working with the General Assembly, I
prioritized broadband with the most aggressive vision for high speed
internet in the nation. Through our public-private Connect Illinois
program, we’re connecting over 26,000 residents who had been left
out of the digital revolution, and it’s redefined the healthcare,
education, and economic opportunities for their communities. At
least $50 million in additional state matching grants will be
awarded this year, making substantial progress on our goal of
universal access in 2024.
Right now it’s more important than ever to invest in, create, and
support good-paying jobs, which is why we amped up the rebuilding
and renewal of our transportation infrastructure. In the last fiscal
year, FY2020, alone, we improved 1,700 miles of highway, completed
600 highway projects and over 120 bridges in every corner of the
state. Modernizing our infrastructure has continued into FY2021 with
the completion of the Chicago Veteran’s Home and the launch of one
of the largest job creating projects in Southern Illinois in a
generation, the Alexander Cairo Port district.
At its core, our pandemic response is focused on saving lives and
protecting working families. We’ve helped keep tens of thousands
families from losing their homes, kept them fed, and ensured their
children had a safe place to go each day. This pandemic isn’t over
yet, so that remains our guiding light for this fiscal 2022 budget
proposal.
As the General Assembly takes up this proposal, brings its own ideas
to the table, and debates our collective approach, I want to take a
moment to discuss the federal government’s role in all of this.
Every Illinoisan should hear this. For decades, Illinois has been
forced to send billions more tax dollars every year to the federal
government than we receive back from them in support of our
citizens. Federal spending is rigged against Illinois. We’ve been
subsidizing public services for other states, like Iowa, Kentucky,
Indiana, and Missouri.
You deserve better. I’m fighting for better. Congress must act
decisively, and I urge every Illinoisan to add their voice to this
demand. So far, not a single Republican Congressman from Illinois
has supported you getting back what you paid for. If not in a
national crisis, when will they stand up for us? Now is the time.
Let’s be clear. Congressional action will help us today, but it
won’t solve Illinois’ remaining fiscal challenges. That’s why any
money we receive from the federal government needs to be spent
wisely, by paying down borrowing and our bill backlog. Anything
remaining must be used to invest in expanding jobs and economic
growth. More jobs, more businesses, more economic activity – means a
higher standard of living for our citizens, a healthier budget and a
healthier state government.
This will be one of the most challenging budgets this government has
ever had to craft, but I know there are willing partners in the
General Assembly. In addition to the budget committee, I’ve spoken
with members and committee chairs of the General Assembly, and
incorporated their ideas, like cutting corporate loopholes that
force the middle class to pay more.
Compromise, hard work, and a willingness to make tough decisions is
going to be required of all of us. I enter the process of
negotiation with an open mind. I have only one hard and fast rule –
we aren’t going to treat people who have been decimated by this
pandemic as roadkill. Those most in need in our most desperate times
deserve our help, and we cannot fail them.
I want to briefly touch on a few other priorities the General
Assembly must address as in-person sessions begin again.
It’s a new era in state government, with a new generation at the
helm, and the first black Speaker of the House. The Black Caucus
just last month passed landmark legislation dealing with education,
criminal justice, economic opportunity and healthcare. There is much
to celebrate, and we have a new moment to advance important
legislation that the people of Illinois have asked for.
A year ago, I outlined my vision for real, lasting ethics reform.
It’s time to pass ethics legislation this year. Nobody should hold
the title of both legislator and lobbyist at the same time. We need
meaningful disclosure of conflicts of interest. We must end the
General Assembly’s revolving door allowing legislators to get paid
as lobbyists the day after they leave office. Restoring the public’s
trust is of paramount importance. There is too much that needs to be
done. If not for the pandemic, this would have happened last year.
With a real legislative session and remote or in person hearings, we
need to get this done.
The to-do list is long, but it includes key priorities like finally
authorizing the overdue second cannabis licensing lottery and
passing an energy bill that protects our nuclear fleet and builds up
our wind and solar industries, protects the environment, puts
consumers first and supports jobs.
There is so much to do, and it’s time to get to work.
I’d like to close by speaking directly to our citizenry who have
endured and persevered through this pandemic.
Almost a year ago, on March 9, 2020, as we were all just becoming
fully aware of the danger that COVID-19 would pose, I appeared
before you in the first of the spring’s 80 daily press conferences.
I said something that day that I didn’t want to have to tell you:
that this pandemic was going to affect your daily life.
I knew you needed me to be honest with you. I knew that moments like
these lurk in our history books, times when leaders are judged by
how willing they are to lay a crisis on the table and ask for help
containing it.
I admit, I wish the last year had been about all the normal problems
of government – lowering taxes and fixing roads and making college
more affordable – instead of once-in-a-lifetime problems like
hunting for N95 masks, and building COVID testing from scratch, and
constructing a fair and science-based strategy for mitigating a new
and deadly disease. This budget proposal reflects that struggle.
But we don’t get to choose the times we live in – we only get to
decide if we are willing to meet the moment that chooses us.
Every single day of the last year I’ve felt the weight of what I’ve
asked you to sacrifice as COVID threatened your lives and
livelihoods. I want you to know that. I wish our paths had crossed
in easier times, Illinois, but I don’t need the times to be easy to
fight for you.
I know it’s hard right now. I know you and your family, no matter
what your circumstances, are struggling. And I know that, just as a
year ago, when you needed me to be honest and tell you that this
pandemic was going to affect your daily lives – right now you need
someone to honestly tell you that it’s going to end.
Well, it IS going to end. The marathon has been long, and I believe
there is one more leg left to run. It requires patience and
perseverance and courage to battle the last attacks of an invisible
enemy.
But it is going to end. That is something I promise you.
In 1918 these state fairgrounds were used to save our citizens. One
hundred years later, they are saving us once again, serving as one
of the largest vaccination sites in Illinois.
Every year in August, these grounds have a much more joyful purpose
as they host the Illinois State Fair. This place changes to meet the
times – it can be a hospital or a testing center or a vaccination
site or a showcase for award-winning livestock or a concert venue.
It can be all of those things and not lose its fundamental
character.
We all had to change to fit the world we’ve had to live in for the
last 12 months.We had to give up some of the best things about
living our lives in order to save our lives. But we didn’t forget
how to hug old friends, toast at weddings, dance at concerts, cheer
at baseball games, and share popcorn at a movie theater. We didn’t
forget how to be human.We didn’t lose our fundamental character.
What is old always becomes new again. And Illinois’s oldest treasure
is the character of its people – it runs rich with a strain of
generosity, empathy and steely minded fortitude that stretches from
Hallie Staley Kinter to Joyce Pacubas-LeBlanc. As long as there is
hardship to face, we will face it. As long as we need heroes, here
in Illinois they will appear.
As long as we need to be strong, we will be. Because that is the
State of our State – generous, heroic, and strong, always.
God bless you, and God bless the great state of Illinois.
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