With limited Illinois tax dollars, state officials are laying out their priorities amid ongoing budget pressures such as the hundreds of millions of dollars for migrant care.

Promoting the taxpayer-funded $250 million Smart Start early childhood education initiative, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state will have to balance such future spending with other pressures.

“And, if we don’t have enough resources for everything that everybody wants, what can we look to do in the future or what should we stop doing in order to make sure that we’re balancing expenditures with revenues,” Pritzker said at an event in Rochester Thursday.

In the first year of the program, Pritzker said his administration surpassed its goal by opening up more than 5,000 child day care seats. He also said his administration is reviewing how it can possibly expand the program further.

[It’s like IL had so much extra money laying around to begin with because they were such good fiscal managers. ~ Beege]