Rockford Sun

State Rep. Joe Sosnowski (R-Rockford) remains firmly committed to the Invest in Kids Scholarship Credit Program despite opposition from Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

The program “essentially helps low-income families be able to leave an underperforming district or maybe a district that they just don’t want to be in and take those scholarship dollars and be able to choose where they want to go to school,” Sosnowski said in a video posted to YouTube. “And they have an option to go to private schools or other schools that would be non-public schools.”

Offering a 75% income tax credit to individuals and businesses that contribute to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGO), the program was first enacted in 2017 and Sosnowski is still counting benefits.

“What we’ve seen over the last several years is that it’s been a very successful program,” he said. “In polling, people support it. It’s hugely helpful to African American and Hispanic communities. It’s focused on income, but, you know, those communities are certainly helped. It helps our private schools too. It creates a nice option for families, and it really replicates off what we’ve seen in a lot of other states.”

Sosnowski said he hopes the program’s popularity continues to be enough to stave off attacks from the governor.

“I think the popularity and the bipartisan support of the program is fantastic and hopefully we can keep the program going and growing for many years to come,” he said.

Sosnowski is also predicting that rising taxes counted on to fund the state’s long troubled pension system will only continue to spur the state’s ongoing population issues.  

Pointing to a recent Wirepoints analysis that hit 102 cities in Illinois with an F grade for their handling of local pensions, Sosnowski said "I live in Rockford, I represent Rockford. You know this city is indicative of the problem. We, as a city used to pay back in 2003 about $7 million into the pension system and that number is now around $23 million."

In the end, Sosnowski said only one thing is clear.

"We're not growing as a state," he said. "You know the governor may dismiss the population of Illinois and say it was just some college kids going off to other states. But the bottom line is, if we grew like any of our Midwestern neighbors, we would have hundreds of thousands of more residents here in the state of Illinois."