MOORE’S SUMMARY: Gov. JB Pritzker poured cold water Thursday on Illinois Federation of Teachers President Stacy Davis Gates’ call to spend the state’s $768 million cut of a multi-state settlement with social media giant Meta for education, saying that “one-time money should really be used for one-time needs.”

PRITZKER: “And while I understand that some people may view the shortfall in the budget in Chicago as a one-time need, it’s not,” Pritzker told reporters in Springfield following a stop on his five-day campaign bus tour. “There’s an ongoing need.”

CONTEXT: Meta, owner of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, reached a $17 billion settlement with nearly all U.S. states, including Illinois, earlier this week that resolved claims that the company designed its platforms with addictive features and knowingly exposed children to serious mental health harms.

Davis Gates, also the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, has said for years that Illinois “owes” Chicago Public Schools the nearly $1 billion necessary to achieve the 90% adequacy target under the state’s Evidence-Based Funding formula.

While annual state funding has increased by $3 billion since EBF’s adoption, more than 63% of school districts, including CPS, remain below the adequacy target, with officials estimating that it will take additional $3 billion to achieve that goal statewide.

The Chicago School Board turned up the pressure last month, approving a budget that banks on the state chipping in another $150 million beyond what’s already allocated. And House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, told CTU members he’s “committed” to supporting a supplemental budget bill in the fall veto session that would increase funding for the district, though that’d require a three-fifths supermajority vote.

“The Governor has said he supports more funding for education but didn’t know where it would come from.  The settlement with Meta just made that answer even easier,” Davis Gates said in a statement Wednesday. “Schools from Peoria to Belleville to Chicago are counting on the Governor and the General Assembly to prioritize students the way we’ve seen them prioritize big tech and billionaire stadium owners.”

ONE-TIME MONEY, ONE-TIME NEEDS: Pritzker said he’s “not opposed” to using the settlement funds if there’s “a real required short-term need” to fill “a small budget hole.”

“But $150 million for Chicago added on top of what is needed across the state, that’s maybe using all of this one-time money for an ongoing need,” Pritzker said.

“So the question is, how do we fill the ongoing need?” Pritzker continued. “And that’s what I would like to focus on, and not the question of ‘How do we spend the one-time money that’s coming from Meta?’”

WHY IT MATTERS: Pritzker’s answer came in the wake of Moody’s upgrading Illinois’ issuer and general obligation bond ratings to A1 — the 11^th time a credit rating agency has upgraded the state’s rating during the governor’s tenure.

The agency attributed the upgrade largely to governance, citing “eight consecutive on-time balanced budgets and consistently conservative fiscal management.”

While Pritzker has made Illinois a bastion of social progressivism during his nearly eight years in office, he’s also constantly emphasized the need to balance the state’s books.

For example, the state directed most one-time federal COVID-19 relief dollars towards recovery expenses, relief programs for businesses and individuals and to repay federal advances to the unemployment trust fund — and not towards creating new programs that would become recurring line items in future budgets.

CPS, on the other hand, devoted a significant chunk of its COVID-19 funds to operating costs, such as programs and staff salaries, that would continue after the one-time relief dried up.

It’s a budgeting contrast worth noting as the current debate over education funding moves forward.