Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s plans to veto Senate Bill 1 may have been foiled by Chicago Public Schools as the group immediately pointed out that he doesn’t have enough power to legally do it.
Passed by Illinois’s Senate and House of Representatives in May, SB 1 is hoped to increase the funding of the state in order to raise enough money to properly educate students in each of the state’s 850-plus school districts. The state funding will then be increased over time after taking into account a district’s local funding capacity and the amount of state funding it already receives as a baseline.
The funding goals are then targeted based on a district’s “essential elements,” which include the costs for class size ratios, technology, and other elements. Also calculated are their cost of implementation based on demographics and regionally variated staff salaries.
According to calculations from the governor’s office, CPS would actually lose $203 million in Rauner’s bill compared to SB 1’s current form.
CPS issued a statement Monday that said Rauner would be unable to perform this action as it is against the state constitution, claiming that the governor “is changing a fundamental purpose of the legislation – and he would be making a substantial change to the legislation. As a result, this amendatory veto exceeds the power of the Governor under the State Constitution.”
Rauner, however, is not backing down, taking to social media to express his outrage and demand the bill be placed on his desk immediately.
“The point of the school reform bill is to help low-income students across the state, including in Chicago, get the education they deserve,” he told his Twitter followers. “Once I receive SB 1, I will amend the bill to remove the bailout of CPS’s broken teacher pension system.”
Tags: Chicago Public Schools, Rauner, SB1