https://www.illinoispolicy.org/waste-watch-illinois-gives-12m-to-nascar/
Excerpts:
Lawmakers claimed the 2026 budget contained no pork, but a closer look shows 2,815 items over $200,000 lawmakers decided to fund in the final hours of the legislative session – rushed, harmful to taxpayers and with no time for public scrutiny. They included $40 million for a high school sports complex at the alma mater of Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch.
Illinois’ opaque budgeting process enables this kind of spending to slip through without public review. Lawmakers pass the budget in a rush, with limited time for open debate and no requirement to justify or audit earmarks.
Illinois faces low economic growth, high debt and ballooning pensions – all because state lawmakers are taking ever-more from taxpayers and driving out jobs and working families.
The story contains a searchable database. Type McLean.
The list you will see includes private organizations like IWU, The Ecology Action Center, and more.
NGO (non-governmental organizations) spending leads to fraud like you are seeing in Minnesota. Illinois claimed no earmarks because legacy media would never look. Luckily the Illinois Policy Institute did.
Unit 5 got $250,000 for facilities even though people were dumb enough to approve a 1% facilities tax in hopes property taxes would decrease. Why did they need this earmark? Because there is never enough money?
Normal indicated on Monday they’re likely to recommend higher water and sewer rates to pay for costly infrastructure improvements
Because they (state and local government) never have enough money….
I wonder what Unit 5 would have asked for if they hadn’t gotten $21,988,766 from the federal government for Covid relief through ESSER I, II and III? Btw they spent over half of that ($12,736,848) on Salaries and Benefits. They also restructured their education system to put and emphasis on Social Emotional Learning. SEL was one of the allowed expenditures in ESSER to protect our children from Covid. Never waste a crisis!
Someday we’ll fully understand the extent of government fraud and waste. Unless democrats take over. If Socialists take over, our government will become fraud and waste.
https://www.isbe.net/Pages/ESSER-Spending-Dashboard.aspx