Waste watch: Illinois’ porky budget gives $7M to move pigs
Illinois’ hidden budgeting process let lawmakers hand out 2,815 grants, including $7 million to move the University of Illinois’ pigs.
Despite state Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, claiming “there is no pork” in the 2026 Illinois budget, there is at least one piece: $7 million to move the University of Illinois’ pigs.
The $7 million grant is to move the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign’s swine research center to a new location. Administrators want the pigs to vacate so they can redevelop the land.
The Swine Research Center is around 10 acres and hosts “a surgery suite, storage facility, a small feed manufacturing facility, animal housing, and animal support space.” Its research primarily focuses on “nutrition, metabolism, reproduction, and behavior.” The relocation appears to refer to the Imported Swine Research Laboratory, which focuses on “biomedical sciences that use pigs as a model for human health and medicine.”
University leaders said the relocation has been a priority for more than a decade –not because the facilities are inadequate, but because the pigs sit on valuable research park land the university wants to redevelop. Administrators cite odors and land constraints as the main reason for the move, while acknowledging the project is driven more by campus planning than research needs.
Despite exploring proposals for over a decade, UIUC has struggled to secure its own funding for the relocation. Yet, in fiscal year 2025, the institution received nearly $1 billion in total public and private awards. This includes $185.9 million from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, $111 million from the National Science Foundation and $81 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. Its endowment currently stands at $2.4 billion, and undergraduate tuition and fees range from $18,000 to $50,000 a year.
With all that money, the justification for an additional $7 million outside the state’s standard budget for the university remains unclear. Because this grant came at the last minute, there was no public scrutiny to determine whether it is a good use of taxpayer dollars.
While supporting research infrastructure can be worthwhile, covering the cost of relocating this facility through the Build Illinois Bond Fund raises concerns. The fund is backed by future sales-tax revenue and other state resources intended for broad capital needs.
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. 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.
Those include $40 million for a sports complex at the alma mater of Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch.
Competitive grants with objective evaluation criteria and reporting requirements should be scored and tracked by a state agency. This ensures funds are allocated and used properly.
This $7 million grant and the rest of the earmarks process lets state lawmakers hand out grants without independent review, inviting waste and abuse of taxpayers. But they do give state politicians nice photo ops that come in handy at election time.
Illinois needs disciplined, transparent budgeting that focuses on real priorities rather than pork projects. That includes setting a spending cap, banning “gut-and-replace” tactics, allowing more time for public review of the budget in its final form, and requiring lawmakers to publicly disclose and justify earmarked spending requests.
Want to see the 2,815 earmarks over $200,000 lawmakers slipped into this year’s budget? Use our look-up tool below.