State lawmakers have yet to pass Senate Bill 1, which would fund public schools, and Governor Bruce Rauner is apparently ratcheting up the pressure on the legislature to do so.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Rauner has demanded that lawmakers get SB-1 onto his desk by noon Monday, or he will call them back to the Capitol for another special session.
“Speaker (Mike) Madigan is clearly hoping that by sitting on the bill until the middle of August or maybe later that the crisis, the pain, the chaos that he can inflict will cause bad policy,” Rauner told the Tribune. “He did this to us in May and June with the tax hike. He’s trying to do it to us with our schools, and at some point we’ve got to stop the tyranny.”
The governor has already said that he plans to use his amendatory veto powers to strip out portions of the bill providing funding and pension relief to Chicago Public Schools, saying that the current version is akin to a “bailout” for the district.
CPS principals received their budgets for the coming school year, and it included $300 million in funding from the state of Illinois. CPS chief Forrest Claypool said that the district will open on time regardless of whether or not the state has passed a school funding bill.
