‘The worst emergency I’ve seen’: Crespo reflects on ouster by House speaker over budget plan

Monday morning, state Rep. Fred Crespo woke up with his wife in his Hoffman Estates bedroom, not Springfield, “which is nice.”

“I texted my daughters, they were fine. I saw the sun rising from the east, hopefully I’ll see it set in the west, so it’s a good day,” he told the Daily Herald.

That said, the Democrat who’s been in office since 2007 is experiencing a dramatic fallout with powerful Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch. The speaker stripped Crespo of chairmanship of the House Appropriations General Services Committee May 14 and cast him out of the caucus, saying he wasn’t communicating with party leaders.

“I’m disappointed, but I’m not surprised,” said Crespo, who believes his ouster came from sounding the alarm about Democratic budgets two years in a row.

The split occurred, Crespo says, when he proposed budget efficiencies hoping to avert “perhaps the worst emergency that I’ve seen since I’ve been in office — absent the Rauner years when we didn’t have a budget for two years.”

Welch told the “Illinois Lawmakers” program last week that, “Rep. Crespo, for whatever reason, chose not to be part of those (budget) processes and to go on his own. And to me, this is a team effort. It’s about the House, and we’re going to move forward as a collective. There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

In 2024, Crespo said he was “very vocal about the budget,” because of concerns about unpaid bills and a projected $730 million public transit shortfall in 2026. He proposed budget reductions such as a salary freeze, but the plan “never got any traction.”

“Fast forward and things are worse than last year,” Crespo said, citing Governor’s Office of Management and Budget projections for 2026 that revenues will be $536 million less than projected.

He’s also dubious about whether legislators will fully embrace $489 million of revenue enhancements proposed in the 2026 budget, such as removing certain tax deductions.

And with federal cuts likely under the Trump administration, Crespo said he wanted to offer a solution for what could be a gap of potentially $1 billion.

He sponsored a proposal to freeze hiring and withhold agency spending by about 10% without cutting salaries or touching Medicaid. “We would have a pot of money we could tap into,” in a worst-case scenario, he said.

“That was the plan, the speaker obviously felt I was going behind his back. I told him that was not my intent. I just wanted a document we could all see and hopefully it could become part of the discussion.”

Welch contended he improved the budgeting process, added staff and held myriad meetings. “There’s a lot of things being done that received input from the entire caucus so that we can put together a budget that reflects a collective,” he said.

The issue wasn’t Crespo’s plan, Welch said.

“Anyone can file a bill. The breaking point was as an appointed chair of one of my appropriations committees (Crespo was) not communicating with the chief of staff, not communicating with the lead budgeteer … not communicating with me as a speaker,” he said.

Crespo denies he failed to reach out or return calls. “I was just trying to be helpful,” he said.

“If something good comes out of this, it’s the support I’ve received from people in the district,” and Democratic and Republican legislators, he said.

That includes Hanover Park Mayor Rod Craig. “He’s been marvelous for us,” Craig said.

Crespo assisted with legislation to reduce crime and to allow collaboration between Harper College and Elgin Community College to offer education and job assistance for multicultural families, Craig said.

What does being removed from the Democratic caucus actually mean?

“I’m still a Democrat,” Crespo said, although he won’t be attending party meetings. “I still have a job to do. I’m just going to have to work harder now to get things done.”

“One benefit of getting older is I’ve been through ups and downs and I’ve been very blessed.”

Asked if he expects a primary challenge, Crespo said, “I’ve heard there might be, which is fine. I feel comfortable in my district and I’ve got a story to tell.”

⋅ Daily Herald wire services contributed to this report.