South Cook News

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced in a speech Wednesday that he has earmarked additional funding for education and child care as part of his $49.6 billion budget.

“Our budgets are built on a solid foundation of normalized state revenue and more efficient management of state resources,” Pritzker said at the start of his nearly hour-long address to a joint session of the Democratic-led state legislature.

The governor’s proposed spending plan also calls for a decline in overall state spending of nearly 1% at a time when revenue from state income and sales taxes are projected to grow and overall revenues are forecasted to drop by as much as 3% over the new fiscal year, according to a WBEZ report.

Part of Pritzker’s plan allocates $250 million to help increase pay for child care workers and create thousands of preschool slots.

“This program will be the beginning of the end of early childhood deserts in Illinois, and working families will have more and better options for their children,” Pritzker said. 

Overall, new spending on public schools would jump by $571 million as part of the plan, including $219 million to support state universities and $100 million to increase funding for the Monetary Award Program, which Pritzker’s administration said would enable “nearly all community college students to have their tuition fees covered through MAP and Pell grants.”