Democratic State Senator Andy Manar, of Bunker Hill, is accusing Gov. Bruce Rauner of trying to kill his school funding legislation. He says the administration fed erroneous information to a Republican operative's website. The story appears in the Kankakee Times, one of a dozen community news organizations created by Dan Proft. Proft runs a political action committee supported by Rauner.
Manar's school funding bill, which passed the Senate on Wednesday, doesn't decrease funding for any district. But the story claims some Kankakee-area districts would lose as much as 44% of their state funding.
The dollar amounts used in that story, however, are way out of date. They came from a bill Manar sponsored last year. Manar is crying foul.
"They complain about me not negotiating in good faith, and at the same time, they're cooking up numbers and documents and sending them over to the campaign apparatus in order to kill a bill."
The governor's office has denied any wrongdoing, and demanded an apology from Manar. He has asked the inspector general to investigate.
