* The governor was asked today about his failed push to let community colleges offer four-year degrees…

Pritzker: Let’s all remember that’s the goal of what I have proposed is to fill some specific types of positions that we don’t produce enough degree holders for in the state of Illinois. There are a number of those but it’s a limited number. We may have programs across the state that have degree opportunities for people but they may produce hundreds when we need thousands. And so just in those very specific niche areas, that’s what we’ve been focused on.

It’s not about opening 48 community colleges to offer four year degrees of every sort. It’s really in these niche areas, some parts of nursing, some parts of advanced manufacturing and so on where we need more people than we are currently producing.

So obviously, the universities want to take up as much of that opportunity as they can, but you have to remember the benefit of having programs like this. And again, these niche programs in community colleges it’s less expensive for people, and they will typically be people come from the surrounding area, because community colleges don’t typically offer dormitories or a place to live. And so you’re talking about people live in a local area.

So yes, I’m excited to continue on the pursuit of it. I want to remind you, for people who think, Oh, hey he proposed something that didn’t pass. I want to look at all the legislators behind me and ask them if everything that they propose in any given General Assembly is something that gets done in that General Assembly? Or do you sometimes have to work two, four, six years, maybe longer, to get something done?

And I would point out that my my deputy governor, Andy Manar, when he was a state senator for 10 years, proposed this, I think, more than 10 years ago, to try to get this done. And it’s been around for quite some time. So I’m going to continue to work at it. I don’t give up on something that’s a good idea.

Please pardon any transcription errors.

* Pritzker talked about property taxes on the campaign trail last week. From the Peoria Journal Star…

Pritzker said during a campaign stop in East Peoria that property tax reform is big in his purview.

“We need to address the property tax problems that face people across Illinois,” Pritzker said Thursday. “That takes a lot of work because it’s not just a one-time solution, it’s something that requires us to increase investment in education, that is the biggest problem. You get your property tax bill, most of that is paying for education locally.”

Pritzker then blamed high property taxes on a lack of education investment in Illinois in years past.

“We were last in the nation when I became governor at funding education from the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “Now, we went from 24% funding to 40% funding. We’ve got a little ways to go to be the best in the country, but I’d like to just be average. We went from being last — being average would mean getting to 46%. So that’s a big deal, we’re going to keep working on that and that’s something that would require getting reelected.”

* Grocery tax…

During a campaign announcement celebration in Springfield, Pritzker was asked how he squared with that fact that cities like Jacksonville reinstated the [1 percent grocery tax]. His response was that municipalities should have found other ways to make up funding.

“I think that the grocery tax is very, very regressive, and that’s why we took it away from the state, we no longer have a state grocery tax,” Pritzker said. “So, I’ve discouraged that – there are other ways for local governments to fund their needs.”

After the June 9 Jacksonville City Council meeting, Mayor Andy Ezard said keeping the tax going just made sense and that local grocery prices wouldn’t really change.

“I think the council realized that this tax has been in effect for over 30 years, and if we eliminated it – we do like eliminating taxes – but if we eliminate this one, it takes up about a half million dollars of our revenue,” Ezard said.

Discuss.