SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers passed a roughly $40 billion state budget over the weekend in special session. The budget relies on federal help to keep the budget balanced.

State Representative Patrick Windhorst (R-Metropolis) voted against the budget. He says one of his biggest concerns of the approved budget is the extended spending authority it gives the governor.

Windhorst says more time could also have been spent going over line items and looking for necessary cuts, saying that state departments prepared reports for possible cuts in this year’s budget, but those were not accounted for in the approved 2021 fiscal budget.