Governor wants more money for schools

The road has been tough for the two-year politician.

Following on the heels of the governor’s address in Springfield earlier this week, Emanuel went off on Rauner’s budget – or lack thereof.

The suit also alleges that the state’s low funding levels require the district to divert a disproportionate amount of its budget to employee pensions.

Harris says including those savings in the budget leaves Democrats with questions. “We can not settle for something that will only slow our state’s decline, we need a plan that will end the slide and help our economy grow good paying jobs”. He says one aspect of that is fully funding regular transportation costs for schools around the state. CPS has railed against how it must maintain and fund its own teachers’ pension system, while districts in the rest of IL are in a state-wide retirement fund that is heavily subsidized by the state.

“It penalizes poor kids in poor school districts and rewards wealthy kids in wealthy school districts – just the opposite of what we should do”, Emanuel told reporters.

Just before Rauner spoke Wednesday, Emanuel appeared at a Northwest Side child care center to blast him for not getting a state budget passed while such facilities suffer, saying “it’s not like the third’s going to be the charm here, OK?” However, he later stated, “This isn’t about pointing fingers or assigning blame”, to which was met by laughter from those in attendance. The state must balance its budget without inflicting massive tax hikes on Illinoisans. “Our entire budget is $37 billion”, Rezin said in a phone interview.

State Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, has filed legislation to keep paying workers, and, she said, keep state government functioning.

“Our spending proposals are significant, but if we came together under our proposal, if we came together on a grand bargain, we’d actually spend $3 billion less than government is now spending”.

“I’ll share some of my own personal views about taxes, about regulations, about bringing down property taxes, about properly funding our schools”, Rauner said.

In his address, the governor said many reforms are hard to undertake because “60 percent of the state’s general revenues … are locked up by statute”. “To send a message to job creators across the country that our state is doing things differently than we have in the past”.

Rauner said Wednesday whatever ultimately comes together needs to be a good deal for taxpayers.

“Spending reductions in the budget need to be real – not smoke and mirrors”, Rauner said.

Rauner also doesn’t want to see a permanent state income tax increase unless there’s a freeze on property taxes. “We need to pass a balanced budget for the long term”.

“We are at a crossroads”, he said. “Right now the Senate is working on this year’s budget because there isn’t one”.