SPRINGFIELD - Illinois lawmakers approved billions in new spending Wednesday, including cash for their own pay raises and a windfall for hospitals.

Last year, lawmakers decided not to block a measure that awarded themselves and some state executives about 15 percent in pay raises. But the cash to pay them had never been approved.

A House panel voted 4-2 Wednesday to pay about $1.5 million for those raises and billions more for other programs.

The spending measure included a key provision that gives about $2.4 billion to the state's hospitals in order to leverage billions of federal money. The state has to pay for the federal government to give its full amount.

"There is a huge amount of federal funding at stake here," said Abby Ottenhoff, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

And $7.7 million was approved to give to families of Illinois soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The state gives the families money, but the pool of cash had run dry recently.

"We've lost more citizens than we've anticipated," said state Rep. Gary Hannig, a Litchfield Democrat and House budget expert.

Earlier this year, a House panel killed a similar spending measure because the pay raises had been a tough political topic. But when they decided against spending on the raises, they also left several other programs without money.

State Rep. Patrick Verschoore, D-Milan, said that he, like several other lawmakers and officials, don't agree with the raises. But he said he won't vote against the spending plan because the rest of the money is needed.

"A lot of times you don't get that," he said. "It's just lumped in with something else."

The legislation is Senate Bill 241.