Quinn said he’s just facing facts.

“We have to understand reality.  We are now without a billion dollars that we counted on this year, so we have to make it up.  And I think it’s very very important to make this decision that we aren’t going to cut education funding.  Instead we’ll have a 1 percent surcharge for schools.”

The governor is calling the tax hike a surcharge, because that may be the only way to get lawmakers on board.  But legislative leaders in Springfield have already said they cannot or will not support a tax increase.

Quinn said he’s confident he can work with the legislature to change that, but wants some sort of revenue-generating legislation approved quickly.

Time is of the essence, Quinn said, since the state will receive its last federal stimulus payment in July. The $1 billion in federal money was used to plug this year’s education budget.

“There’s no scaring involved, the bottom line is the federal money is not coming.”

The governor said dire consequences loom ahead if his tax increase is not approved to replace those federal dollars.

“You’re going to see a lot of young teachers, who just got out of school…they’d be the first ones laid off.  And we’re talking about 17,000 teachers in Illinois losing their jobs.”

Quinn spoke at a Springfield middle school, where Springfield District 186 Superintendent Walter Milton said he’s looking at dozens of layoffs.

Milton has proposed at least 56 layoffs in Springfield, but said the real impact will come next year when he cannot re-hire teachers.

The superintendent said he usually hires or re-hires 100 teachers a year.  He said next year that number could be only 30 or 40 teachers.  Milton is hesitant to commit to anything in his budget yet.

“Our goal is to complete and pronounce our budget to the community by June.  We’re going through the preliminary work to do that, and also building these financial adjustments into our budget.”

Milton said he doesn’t want to write anything in stone before then, because he’s worried about giving teachers and parents false expectations.

Quinn maintains that teachers and parents will understand and support his tax increase — it’s just lawmakers who need to get the message.