J.B. budget commits to kids
Budget proposal meets pledge to ‘make Illinois the best state in the nation to raise young children’
Gov. Pritzker shakes hands with members of the General Assembly leading him into the Capitol for his budget address. (Illinois.gov)
By Ted Cox
Gov. J.B. Pritzker delivered a budget proposal to the General Assembly on Wednesday that followed through on his determination “to make Illinois the best state in the nation to raise young children,” by funding education and other childhood development as “the strongest investment we can afford to make today.”
Saying he was “moving our state another step toward universal preschool for every low-income child,” Pritzker emphasized, “Prioritizing our youngest Illinoisans offers the strongest return on investment for our future.”
Pritzker had harsh words for naysayers, and his predecessor Bruce Rauner came in for criticism by name and by implication.
“The cynics had their years in power,” he said, and “the people of Illinois suffered because of them.
“Lowering the wages of workers, trying to bankrupt the state, and seeking to destroy government didn’t work,” he added. Pritzker called out Rauner’s “two long years without a state budget,” and he said state employees and other residents suffered when “Bruce Rauner went to war with labor unions.”
By contrast, he said, the bipartisan balanced budget passed last year allowed the state to pay down $1 billion in backlogged bills, which contributed to improved credit ratings that will “save tens of millions of dollars for taxpayers.” He added, “The budget I propose to you today will build on the steady progress we’ve been making over the last year.”
Pritzker touted $225 million in savings through operational efficiencies this year and $750 million over three years. He committed to restoring the state’s so-called Rainy Day Fund by dedicating $100 million to it over the next 16 months — the first contribution to that fund in more than a decade.
He applauded revenue gains from the legalization of cannabis, and said sports betting, approved by the General Assembly last year, “appears to be on track to be up and running in time for March Madness,” with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament next month.
But he devoted the meat of his message to funding for children and education, from preschool through college. Pritzker announced his budget proposal would “make community-college tuition free to all (Monetary Award Program)-eligible students whose families make under $45,000 a year,” while adding 20,000 new scholarships along with a 5 percent funding increase for higher ed, thus allowing the University of Illinois to provide free tuition as well to students whose families make less than $67,000.
“There is no more critical investment we can make in the future of our state than in our bright and ambitious young people,” Pritzker said.
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There is no more critical investment we can make in the future of our state than in our bright and ambitious young people.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Illinois.gov)
He touted expansion of Advanced Placement classes across the state, which allow students to earn college credit in high school and thus potentially shorten their years in college, and he committed to restoring the College Illinois program
“The program’s creators didn’t forecast that tuition increases would outstrip market returns, and we find ourselves in a place today where the program will be insolvent in six years,” Pritzker said. “We didn’t create this problem, but we are charged with fixing it,” and he committed a $27 million down payment toward restoring solvency in the program.
Pritzker’s budget set funding for K-12 education at $350 million, just as last year, but he acknowledged he wished it were more.
“This is not nearly enough to fund our schools properly and allow us to alleviate spiraling local property-tax burdens throughout our state,” he said. “But in a year dominated by limited resources and guided by prudent decisions about our state budget, this is the strongest investment we can afford to make today.”
Pritzker said a complete overhaul of the troubled Department of Children and Family Services was underway, with a 20 percent increase in funding over the last Rauner budget and a corresponding 11 percent staffing increase, and he framed it as a bipartisan issue, saying, “One of the moral tests of government is how we treat our most vulnerable. The funding needs of DCFS should transcend party and partisanship and be a cause we can all rally around.”
The $42 billion budget for the 2021 fiscal year, beginning in July, straddles the Jan. 1 effective date for Pritzker’s proposal for a fair tax — a graduated income tax, set to be confirmed by voters with a referendum on a change to the state constitution on the November ballot. He insisted that would additionally improve state finances, but he also committed to holding $1.4 billion of the budget in reserve until the matter is settled, while dangling “increased funding for K-12 education, universities and community colleges, public safety and other key investments” as incentives to approve a progressive income tax. As it stands, he called his budget proposal “a bridge to the future, where I believe we have an opportunity to change our tax structure so working families are treated more fairly.”
Pritzker renewed his commitment to fulfill the state’s pension obligations, and he dismissed those who seek to add another constitutional referendum to the ballot allowing changes to promised pension benefits, saying it would lead only to a legal quagmire. He insisted that his proposed budget would put the state on track to make a pension payment next year “over and above what is required in statute” for the first time ever.
“I believe that we are sent here to effectively manage the resources necessary to deliver what Illinois families need — good schools and health care, clean water and clean air, paved roads and sturdy bridges, a growing economy,” Pritzker said. “Let’s all agree that effective government demands efficient government.”
The governor called for a unified approach to solving state problems and argued against those who would pit various segments of the state against one another politically. “Trying to separate Chicago from the rest of Illinois, whether rhetorically or literally, will not solve the economic challenges of downstate Illinois. Quite the opposite,” he said. “Some of you need to stop pretending that one part of Illinois can exist without all the others. We are one Illinois.”