Carbondale Reporter

In a June 7 Facebook post, Illinois state Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) asked constituents if they were encountering issues with state office staffing levels.

"Are any of you experiencing difficulties reaching state offices due to people not returning to work since the COVID shutdowns?" she said in the post. "I’m aware that some state offices are STILL having their staff report only 2-3 days per week. What are your thoughts on this? I want offices fully open for business."

The senator followed up with a June 9 Facebook post that included a link to a petition to return state offices to normalcy.

"I have heard your overwhelming desire for our state offices to return to normalcy," Bryant said in the post. "Please help me make your voices heard by signing the following petition that calls upon ALL state offices to fully return to pre-COVID office staffing rules and hours." The petition is available at senatorbryant.com/return-to-normalcy.

In recent weeks, Bryant has spoken out about the "irresponsible" $50.6 billion budget that Gov. JB Pritzker signed for the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

"After spending days touring the state, the Governor is signing his partisan and ‘balanced’ budget that will spend over $50.6 billion," the senator said in a June 8 release from her office. "The reality is that this so-called balanced budget only has a self-admitted ‘surplus’ of $100 million and doesn’t truly account for all the spending that we know will take place throughout the upcoming fiscal year. This budget doesn’t account for over half of a billion dollars that was projected to be spent on the state’s misguided undocumented immigrant healthcare program or hundreds of millions on the state’s expected new AFSCME contract."

Bryant has particularly criticized the budget regarding funding for health care for undocumented migrants, which is a topic that all Illinois Republican legislators seemingly are concerned about.

"This budget once again proves that Democratic lawmakers have backwards priorities that don’t put Illinoisans first," she said in a bulletin dated May 30. "It’s concerning that they chose to continue to underfund the struggling developmentally disabled community while putting hundreds of millions of dollars toward non-citizens through the state’s undocumented immigrant healthcare program and immigrant welcoming centers."

On June 20, WICS reported that Pritzker has ended the program that provided health care to undocumented migrants under age 65.

"In 2020, Illinois began offering state-funded health care to undocumented immigrants 65 years old or older," the report said. "The program was expanded to cover 55-year-olds to 64-year-old in April of 2022 and 42-year-olds to 54-year-old in July of 2022. Pritzker told lawmakers that the change going into effect on July 1 is a temporary freeze to save costs."

The report also included a statement from the governor.

"In the middle of a global pandemic, Illinois was the first state in the nation to implement a program that provides healthcare for undocumented people," Pritzker said in the statement. "We are continuing that investment with more than $500 million going towards a program that will continue providing healthcare for more than 63,000 people and we are doing so in a manner that allows us to maintain the state’s financial stability."