SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — The Illinois House of Representatives voted to approve a budget for the next fiscal year.

The budget continues a trend of increased spending in the state. The $53 billion spending plan is a 1.6% increase over last year’s budget, and republicans were quick to point out on the floor that the size of the budget has increased by over $13 billion dollars since Governor Pritzker took office.

The budget lines up closely to Governor Pritzker’s proposed plan from February. There is an additional $350 million going to K-12 education and the Evidence Based Funding Model. The state is continuing to pay into early childhood education through Pritzker’s Smart Start Program. Budgeteers said the state will be making it’s full pension payment, too.

“We are not going to choose between a responsible budget, and a compassionate budget, because the FY2025 budget proves we can do both,” Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth (D-Peoria) said.

The budget includes a number of Pritzker’s priorities, including $10 million for a new Early Childhood Agency for the state, and it includes $500 million dollars for a new quantum computing campus.

Added to all of that are the budget pressures that have been hanging around all Spring. Revenue numbers have sat at lower levels than previous years, and the state has continued to spend money to help Chicago deal with the influx of migrants being bussed into the city from border states. This budget includes $182 million going to Chicago to help shelter and care for migrants. And the state is spending hundreds of millions on a program to give non-citizens access to healthcare.

Republicans in the House centered a lot of their attacks on the spending on migrants during the debate

“This is my first budget,” Freshman lawmaker Brandun Schweizer said on the floor. “And in it, is outlining spending almost four times the amount spent on non-citizens than on veterans.”

To help pay for all of the spending, the state is counting on a revenue package of tax hikes — mostly on businesses, including sports books –to balance it out. In order to create those new revenue streams though, the House needed to pass a bill, and that proved harder than one would think for a supermajority caucus.

When the vote was initially held, Democrats reached 60 votes — the bare minimum to pass with a majority in the chamber. But Republicans called for a role call vote, meaning they wanted to verify that every member that voted was actually in the chamber. One democrat, Representative Aaron Ortiz (D-Chicago), was not in the chamber, meaning the bill would fail.

Democrats avoided that catastrophic result by initially removing the bill from consideration, and then eventually making a motion to reconsider — or essentially a revote. It took multiple votes on different procedural rules before Democrats were able to pass the pivotal piece of the budget package just before 5 am.

“I think it should be clear to everyone In this state what this supermajority is willing to do to ram a tax increase down the throats of the people of Illinois at 4:30 in the morning,” Rep. Patrick Windhorst (R-Metropolis) said.

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch kept his usual end of session remarks much shorter after all of the chaos.

He led his abbreviated speech by saying “no one’s ever said the House is boring.”

The budget and all other parts of the legislative package now go to Governor Pritzker’s desk.