For the past month, the Rauner Administration has been working to implement a tax credit program for individuals and corporations who choose to donate up to a million dollars to private schools. But one state senator has proposed legislation to shift the focus to public schools.
Some schools in Illinois scrape by with less than half the money needed to provide an adequate education. Other schools have lavish budgets almost three times what they need. Last summer, lawmakers approved a massive school funding overhaul promising $350 million to start repairing that inequity. But to get Governor Bruce Rauner to sign it, they had to add tax credits for private schools.
State Senator Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, a Democrat from suburban Shorewood, has filed a measure to make sure the state fulfills the pledge contained in the original legislation.
“If the tax credits are very important, important enough to the governor, then he will make sure that we have the minimum funding there every year.”
Rauner recently acted to expand the tax credit program. Meanwhile, the new dollars public schools were expecting still have not been distributed.
