* Subscribers know much more. Some background from Rich’s column in July…

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch promised the Chicago Teachers Union last week that he will “lead” the effort to send more state money to Chicago Public Schools during the upcoming fall veto session.

Welch made his pledge in a CTU-posted video Wednesday while holding a union poster blasting proposed CPS layoffs and budget cuts. “The state of Illinois underfunds Chicago schools by $2 billion,” the poster proclaimed.

“This should not be happening,” Welch said, gesturing toward the sign focusing on layoffs. “I do think that the state of Illinois can do better, should do better. This should be, and I’m going to keep fighting for you, so that we can get more revenue to get to CPS schools … I will lead that effort in the veto session.” […]

The day after Welch made that commitment to the CTU, the CPS Board voted to pass a budget that relies on the state increasing funding by $150 million in the next few months. The CTU supported the vote.

* Gov. JB Pritzker was asked this morning whether there had been discussions about a supplemental budget to provide additional funding for Chicago Public Schools during veto session…

Reporter: CPS funding is potentially up this veto session. We are waiting for Speaker Welch for his plan. What have those discussions been like?

Pritzker: To be clear, there haven’t been discussions. There are lots of other issues that get discussed over time. That that hasn’t really been an ongoing discussion.

I mean, to the extent someone wants to propose something, they can in the veto session. But I will say this: I think we all agree on one thing. We need more funding for education in the state of Illinois. And right now, one of the and as you know, I’ve increased funding for our education system by $3 billion a year. It’s a very substantial increase. I think 28 percent increase in funding across the board, and we need to keep going because we still don’t have what we need for many, many schools. We have increased the number of teachers. We have more teachers working in the state of Illinois today than ever before, and I’m glad of that. And I think that contributes to the results of Illinois having the fifth best K-12 education system in the country.

But as far as supplemental funding I have not heard that there will be a move to do that, and so I don’t know what that might look like, but I can just say the federal government is not making it easy for us to balance the budget in the state of Illinois. They’ve made it harder, and we already had a challenge, as you know, when I took office. We’ve managed to balance it every year thanks to the people behind me doing all the you know difficult things to make that possible, while also funding a hollowed-out government that we were left with after the last Republican governor.

I guess all of that is to say I am not certain that mid-year we’ll be able to do something that will meet only one school district’s needs. And instead, I think we should be talking about what we’re doing in the coming fiscal year, which will be the next fiscal year, and we’ll be debating and discussing that from now until the end of May.

Discuss.