© 2024 WNIJ and WNIU
Northern Public Radio
801 N 1st St.
DeKalb, IL 60115
815-753-9000
Northern Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
WNIJ's summary of news items around our state.

Rauner Makes Campaign-Style Tour To Push Skeleton Budget

Brian Mackey

The inability of Illinois Democrats to agree on a budget leaves open a window for Governor Bruce Rauner to push one of his own.

The Republican is doing a campaign-style tour to push for a skeleton budget. He says it would keep government's basic functions going until January -- except for education. 

He wants schools fully funded, for the whole year. Making sure schools have the money to open come fall is a top priority for most legislators. But they’re divided over how much to spend on education.

Republican Senator Jason Barickman of Bloomington is on the tour with Rauner. He says House Speaker Michael Madigan's budget plan would "bail out" the city of Chicago and its school district.

"Us downstaters need to stick together so that we don't enable Mike Madigan to bail out Chicago,” Barickman said.

The governor made similar remarks today. It's true that the spending plans advanced by Democrats would give Chicago Public Schools more money -- as well as other schools with many students in poverty.

All of the Democratic budget plans put hundreds of millions more dollars into schools than Rauner is proposing.

Amanda Vinicky moved to Chicago Tonight on WTTW-TV PBS in 2017.
Related Stories