Heartland state senator reacts to Gov. Pritzker’s State of the State address

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (KFVS) - Governor JB Pritzker gave the State of the State address on Wednesday afternoon to Illinois political leaders.

Gov. Pritzker covered topics such as the budget and education. But there is one topic Ill. State Sen. Terri Bryant wished the governor would have discussed during the speech.

“Right now we need to help the citizens of Illinois figure out how to put food on their tables and heat their homes,” Sen. Bryant said.

She said the State of the State address did start out promising.

“First the governor started out in a very positive way,” Sen. Bryant said. “Talked about the direction that Illinois is going, we’ve paid off a lot of our backlog of bills and gave a very positive state of the state.”

Gov. Pritzker made statements about the budget.

“Our budgets are built on a solid foundation of normalized state revenue and more efficient management of state resources,” Gov. Pritzker said.

But after this, Sen. Bryant believes Gov. Pritzker wants to spend billions of new dollars.

Gov. Pritzker also touted the historic education investments.

“When it comes to K-12 education, we’ve come a long way, and we still have a long way to go,” Gov. Pritzker said. “Which is why I’m proposing we increase our investment in K-12 education by another $506 million: including $350 million in EBF, an $86 million increase in grants for transportation and special education and an additional $70 million targeted at educator shortages.”

Sen. Bryant believes this money should be sent to rural school districts in need.

“If we’re going to have additional spending, then let’s do it in these deserts--in the places that have no care at all, or no help at all,” Sen. Bryant said. “And so I think that’s something we really do have to look at as a legislative body.”

GOP leaders are calling on Gov. Pritzker to give relief to Ameren and Co-op Customers throughout the state. According to Sen. Bryant, there is no money in his proposed budget for any kind of relief.

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