Pritzker boosts public school funding by $350 million but wants to cut low-income scholarship program

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker wanted to renege on the promised $350 million increase in education spending until state lawmakers pushed back. He still wants to cut the scholarship program low-income and minority students use when public education doesn’t fit them.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker for a second year wanted to withhold the $350 million education spending increase built into the 2017 school funding formula, but changed his mind May 6 and announced he supports keeping the promise to the state’s schoolchildren.

Pritzker’s reversal came after state lawmakers were gearing up to fight for the money, which is targeted at closing funding gaps between wealthier and poorer schools.

“I don’t want to go down the path of continuing to short our schools again,” state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Aurora, said April 30.

Illinois failed to provide the extra money during the current budget year and Pritzker was poised to keep it again July 1, the start of the fiscal year 2022 budget lawmakers are currently crafting. His change of heart also came after a report showed Illinois revenues are up.

“Parents, students and educators can breathe a sigh of relief,” Pritzker said. “As an education advocate myself, I am really all too happy that our improved economic and fiscal condition allows us to increase educational funding.”

The extra cash was reflected in the latest report from the Illinois General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, which stated revenue numbers outpaced predictions. Revenues fell by $2.74 billion in April 2020 but grew by $1.78 billion in April 2021, in part thanks to income tax payments deferred in 2020 and to taxes collected from the American Rescue Plan.

“While the full story of FY 2021 revenues has yet to be written, given the onset of the pandemic, receipts clearly have performed much better than any prognosticator could have foretold one year earlier,” the COGFA report stated.

“Despite periodic upward revisions in the revenue projections throughout the course of the fiscal year, each time those updated expectations have been met and exceeded,” the report continued.

The Illinois State Board of Education requested a 4.6% funding increase earlier this year in opposition to the governor’s flat education spending proposal. ISBE’s request included $50 million for additional early childhood education grants and $362 million for the evidence-based funding formula – a spending goal written into 2017 education funding statute aimed at driving new money to the districts farthest from funding “adequacy.”

Both Houses of the General Assembly must approve the state spending plan before Pritzker will have the opportunity to sign or veto it.

House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, said he was optimistic about the latest COGFA report, but the state still needs to close a deficit of about $1.4 billion.

“The economy of the state of Illinois has been performing better than we had expected,” Harris said. “And to be honest, we initially planned for this year very conservatively, not knowing what COVID would bring.”

While Pritzker is no longer trying to keep the money promised to poorer schools, he is still trying to take back another promise to low-income students. The Invest in Kids Scholarship Tax Credit Program was passed in 2017 to offer low-income families scholarship money so their kids can attend private schools when those schools best suits their needs.

Pritzker wants to cut the tax credit to 40% from the 75% negotiated when state lawmakers hiked state income taxes, which would take $14 million from the program. Pritzker targeted the scholarships even though the income of participating families averages $38,000, and 49% are Black or Hispanic, according to Empower Illinois.

Public school failed to give Bose Clodfelter’s son the attention he is now getting, thanks to a scholarship at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic School in Joliet, Illinois.

“I think that it’s very important for people to have the ability to donate to the tax credit scholarship program because they care about the educational needs of the community and that people have the choice and a right to get the education that they want for their children,” Clodfelter said.

“It’s very important that politicians allow this tax credit to continue so my family can have the opportunity to be a part of a school system where our children and my family as a unit thrives.”

She said public schools still receive her property taxes but are relieved of the requirement to educate her children, which relieves the classroom crowding her son experienced in public school. In fact, tax credit scholarships saved taxpayers $3,000 per scholarship student in a study that looked at the 2013-2014 school year.

Pritzker targeted the program as part of nine taxes to generate $932 million. He portrayed them as “closing corporate tax loopholes.”

Clodfelter would disagree that her children’s educations are a corporate loophole.