Unions demand more from Pritzker for education

As expected, we did not see a whole lot of spending increases in Gov. JB Pritzker’s state budget proposal last week. Last year, Pritzker said his budget limited discretionary spending to less than a 1 percent increase. The plan unveiled last week limits discretionary spending to less than a half a point increase. An education funding lobby day was held the day before the budget address in Springfield. The teachers unions decried the state for not living up to its evidence-based funding law, which was supposed to bring all schools up to 90% “adequate” funding levels by next year. Instead, the annual evidence-based funding ramp is way behind, and the unions say the state won’t reach its target until 2034. So, they claim, the state “owes” K-12 schools $5 billion and “owes” higher education another $1 billion. And, as they’ve been demanding for a while, they want it all now. Columnist Columnist Pritzker’s budget proposal does increase spending on “mandated categoricals” for K-12 schools (things like special education, transportation and school lunches) by $51 million which, the governor’s office says, “benefit all districts.” But the governor’s plan will raise the annual evidence-based funding plan ramp payment increase by just $5 million, to $305 million. Higher education spending will be limited to a 1 percent increase, similar to last year, and way behind inflation. The day before the governor delivered his proposed budget to lawmakers, rumors circulated among legislators that K-12 education would receive an additional $200 million. Some people assumed that money would be used to boost the state’s evidence-based funding law. The governor’s budget proposal did indeed project $200 million in revenues from imposing a new “social media platform fee,” and the money was earmarked for education. But, as I noted above, evidence-based funding was given only an additional $5 million on top of its (mostly) usual $300 million annual increase. According to a PowerPoint presentation from the governor’s budget office, that $200 million, if approved and if the fee survives a legal challenge, would be “dedicated to supporting education.” My associate Isabel Miller asked Pritzker during his post-address news conference where that $200 million would go. “Well, guess what? The Legislature has a lot to say about how the money would be spent, but I think the important thing is that our education system, our K-12 system across the state, needs that kind of support,” Pritzker said. Then he moved on before she could follow up. But wait, this is Pritzker’s own budget proposal. And all the revenue from that new fee are included in his spending plan. The governor’s budget wouldn’t balance without it. So, I followed up with the governor’s office to ask where, specifically, that money was going. “The proposal is to deposit it into the Common School Fund — the same place the Lottery is deposited — to support the cost of K-12 education. The Common School Fund is one of the General Funds, so the deposit is reflected in the General Funds budget proposal.” OK, but according to the governor’s budget book, the Common School Fund is expected to grow by $103 million in the coming fiscal year — roughly half of the $200 million it’s receiving. And the Lottery’s contribution to the fund is projected to grow by $17 million (to $832 million out of a $6.96 billion fund budget). Ironically, this sort of thing used to happen with the Lottery all the time. The gambling cash didn’t really add new money to school funding, but it did help the state shift an equal amount away to the rest of the budget every year. In this case, $200 million is being added to the school fund, but, in the process, $114 million appears to have been shifted out of the fund to the rest of the budget. Pritzker held a news conference Friday to tout his new proposal to ban cellphones in classrooms. Afterward, the Illinois Federation of Teachers had seen enough and issued a sharply critical statement. “What educators will tell you is that creating more unfunded mandates while failing to fund the ones already on the books — special education, nutritional supports for hungry children and school transportation — is out of order,” said the federation's Executive Vice President Cyndi Oberle-Dahm via news release. “The state of Illinois owes its students $6 billion for pre-K to Ph.D., and that is where the governor should start.” Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com. Send letters to letters@suntimes.com. More about how to submit here.