Illinois House speaker gets $40M sports complex for alma mater

Backroom deals produced lots of pork in the state budget, including a $40-million sports complex at the Illinois House speaker’s alma mater.

Although state Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, called Illinois’ 2026 budget “fiscally and socially responsible,” claiming “there is no pork,” a closer look shows it’s packed with questionable spending for projects and special interests statewide.

There are 2,815 items lawmakers funded in their final hours, and those are just the expenditures over $200,000.

Among these is a $40 million grant to Proviso Township High Schools District 209 for “costs associated with capital improvements and a sports complex at Proviso West High School.” It is the alma mater of Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, and the district where he previously served as school board president and launched his political career.

Welch defended the sports facility funding – a price tag five times higher than Wrigley Field’s original cost in today’s money – as “transformational” and for “uplifting the entire region and promoting local economic development.”

While it might boost local growth, it’s unfair to the thousands of other Illinois students whose schools lack such political pull and a disservice to the district’s struggling students. The project seems to be a byproduct of the state’s chronic overspending and flawed budgeting process, using “gut-and-replace” amendments to transform empty bills into thousand-page documents overnight.

The practice circumvents the state’s three-day bill review rule intended to let lawmakers examine and debate what they are passing. It leaves taxpayers in the dark and forced to pay for projects of dubious public benefit.

The funding to Welch’s alma mater not only raises fairness concerns but also reflects misplaced priorities. Instead of throwing money at a lavish amenity, Springfield could be focusing on addressing core academic issues.

Proviso West High School, which serves fewer than 2,000 students, ranks in the bottom half of Illinois’ public schools, with just 11.4% of students proficient in math and 21.3% in reading. They have needs, but a $40 million sports complex will do little to address them.

To protect taxpayers and maintain fairness, Illinois needs disciplined, transparent budgeting that prioritizes structural changes above symbolic gestures. That means setting a spending cap, banning “gut-and-replace” tactics, allowing at least 72 hours for public review of the budget in its final form to comply with the state’s constitutional rule, and requiring lawmakers to publicly disclose and justify all earmarked spending requests.

Want to see the other 2,814 earmarks over $200,000 in this year’s budget? Use our look-up tool below.