72 Comments - Ghost - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 11:47 am: In my experience, most regional superintendents and their offices represent a large drain with little benefit. The salaries for the superintendents and deputy superindentends are way to high; lus they get guranteed colas etc. Why do we pay these positions more then we pay agenecy directors, the top lawyers at the AG’s office, public defenders etc. We need more teachers, books andbricksand mortar, not more overpriced administrators. The superintendets hire grant writers and staffs of people. We have education boards to overssee operations of theschool system. let them hire a staff and secretary that reports to the board out of local funds and be done with it. - A Regular Voter Speaks - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 11:56 am: Couldn’t have said it better than Ghost did. Get rid of regional superintendents. - John A Logan - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 11:58 am: I echo Ghost and his statement. - Wensicia - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:01 pm: Schools already do background checking on employees, plus researching and writing grant proposals. All the RS office does is route the forms back and forth between school districts and Springfield. They are an unnecessary expense, one school districts can easily absorb while cutting down on paperwork processing time. - PaGo - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:08 pm: Well said, Ghost. The indians work while the chiefs claim credit (and get well compensated). - KungFuGrip - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:08 pm: I could not disagree more with the prior comments. The ROEs provide services that individual school districts cannot provide for themselves including teacher certification, school construction, and accreditation. To paint the ROEs with the broad brush of “overpriced administrators” demonstrates the lack of knowledge about the services they provide. The savings they generate allows schools to pay for books/learning materials and maintenance of facilities. These issues aside, how can one constitutionally elected official unilaterally eliminate another elected office? This is akin to Quinn deciding the state cannot afford the Secretary of State, zeroing out its budget, and telling counties that if they want those services they should find the money to pay for it. - Team Sleep - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:09 pm: ROEs are a drain on the state’s budget. They are duplicitous and are often more political than necessary. I would also argue that most people in an ROE jurisdiction don’t know what an ROE even does. - muffy1 - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:13 pm: Many Regional Superindents are political hacks, who draw a large salary w/o the responsibility of running a district. Not only should the office be eliminated, but school districts, especially “downstate” should be consolidated if the legislators really want to improve the education of our children and future voters. - Demoralized - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:15 pm: It doesn’t matter what you think of the ROE’s. The fact is that they are established in statute, they are elected officials, and their salaries are specifically spelled out in statute, including where they are to be paid from. The state attempted a few years ago to deny the ROE’s their statutorily guaranteed COLAs and they lost that fight. I’m not sure why the state now believes that it can eliminate the salaries entirely. If the Governor wants to get rid of the ROE’s he needs to do it the right way and change the law. What he has done is simply ignore the law - something his predecessor did regularly. - VanillaMan - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:17 pm: How did we ever function without them before? Let’s find out! Let’s not spend $11.3 million we don’t have. - downstate commissioner - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:20 pm: You guys flat-out don’t know what you are talking about. School districts, large or small, can’t afford to take on any more duties. Instead of one administrator and a couple of secretaries in a regional office, individual schools will all have to employ more people (administrators, not teachers )to do the Regional Superintendents’ jobs. Additionally, every so often some “expert” legislator thinks that we need more testing, more teacher “certification”, gets a bill passed, and more paperwork is called for, more tracking of scores and teacher educational credits, and “somebody” gets stuck with an unfunded mandate to do it, whether it is the individual district or the regional supt. (Oh by the way, most of these plans last about three to five years, become ignored, and fall by the wayside. Then another legislator comes up with a “brand-new” idea to start the process over again. My wife went through several of these programs in her 33 years of teaching.-Talk about a waste of time and money). My wife doesn’t even like our current supt., but she believes the position is necessary. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:21 pm: –The ROEs provide services that individual school districts cannot provide for themselves including teacher certification, school construction, and accreditation.– The ISBE can’t do teacher certs., accreditation, and sign off on construction plans? Aren’t the regionals just following state standards, anyway. I’m guessing we could do without them. - Demoralized - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:23 pm: word, Sure ISBE can do those things. But, are you going to complain when ISBE needs to hire more people to do them b/c they can’t keep up with all of the work they have to do now? - retired - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:32 pm: Here’s the rub in all this: Regional Superintendents of Schools shall receive the salary provided by Section 3‑2.5 The salaries provided in this Section for regional superintendents and assistant regional superintendents are payable monthly from the Common School Fund. It would appear that even though Quinn zeroed out the salary line item, the law commands that their salaries still be paid. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 12:35 pm: retired, they may get paid, but read on… ===The State Comptroller in making his or her warrant to any county for the amount due it from the Common School Fund shall deduct from it the several amounts for which warrants have been issued to the regional superintendent, and any assistant regional superintendent, of the educational service region encompassing the county since the preceding apportionment of the Common School Fund. === - Plutocrat03 - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 1:10 pm: Its time that unnecessary layers of management get removed. This seems to be a layer where cost exceeds value. Reallocate the unique functions and move on the next cost cutting measure. At 11+ M savings we will a lot more of these to make a real dent - downstate hack - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 1:10 pm: ====If the governor makes a line item reduction, the [item] is in effect at the reduced amount. The General Assembly would have to vote to restore that amount.==== If the Governor would reduce the salary lines in the other agencies not affected by his edit last week, would the union employees in those agencies also lose their raises? Just wondering with a little bit of SNARK. - Responsa - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 1:11 pm: Yes, stop the funding and thereby cut the positions. If ROEs are as necessary as some say it will become readily apparent in a year or two–at which point they can be re funded and re-established as smaller units with smaller salaries to reflect market conditions. - the Patriot - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 1:12 pm: Like most of the Governor’s projects, it may need to be done, but lets make a plan. 95% of what the ROE does can be done directly by the ISBE with little effort, but some of it, like handling petitions for annexation and detachment needs someone local to process. It can be done, but I see papers sitting in mailboxes with no one acting by just cutting the budgets. FYI, I believe teacher Certs are already sent to Springfield or Chicago directly. No a big deal. - Commonsense in Illinois - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 1:19 pm: I agree with Ghost, but if the Quinn Administration wants to eliminate the salaries, it should have also asked for the enabling statute to be repealed. IMHO the state has set itself up for a lawsuit it cannot win. Along with the disclosure that Illinois will no longer test to make sure our kids can compose a proper sentence, this is another example of unbelievable ineptitude. - Irish - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 1:56 pm: Well how about the Governor PAYING the small businesses the millions he owes them before he asks them to foot the bill for an office that helps local districts comply with some of the MANDATES the State of Illinois distates. I personally would like to see the local folks tell the Gov that they will fund the ROE offices and their transportation costs, but they will take that off the top before they send any money to the state. And when he complains they can tell him that their local governments would like to pay but the appropriation doesn’t cover paying the State. Should work both ways. - PaGo - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 2:56 pm: Irish, it’s always the same: when you owe the government money, they will harass you to no end, but if the government owes you money it’s a totally different story. - Demoralized - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 3:06 pm: The CPPRT goes directly to the school districts so skimming money off the top of those funds for ROE’s is a nice back-door way of cutting funding for schools. Kind of odd for a Governor who said education funding was a priority. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 3:32 pm: ===It would appear that even though Quinn zeroed out the salary line item, the law commands that their salaries still be paid. === Nope. I just checked. They ain’t getting paid. - OneMan - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 3:38 pm: Vaught says the officials may have to go without pay for several months until a deal can be worked out with lawmakers. That’s a motivator…. - Old Milwaukee - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 4:06 pm: Maybe Vaught should go without pay for a couple of months until he figures out how to get Illinois out of this neverending fiscal quagmire. - Voice of Experience - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 4:10 pm: ===It would appear that even though Quinn zeroed out the salary line item, the law commands that their salaries still be paid. === ===Nope. I just checked. They ain’t getting paid.=== Who did you check with? Seems pretty clear that if there is no appropriation, they get paid out of the common school fund (by deducting money from state aid payments to local school districts.) The section you cited doesn’t seem to give the Comptroller much leeway. She’s got to deduct it from state aid payments if there is no separate appropriation. If someone says otherwise, what are they basing that on? - OneMan - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 4:23 pm: But we are telling folks to do their jobs without pay for a couple of months… Seriously? - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 4:28 pm: ===Seems pretty clear=== Famous last words. It’ll be explained in tomorrow’s Fax. - Demoralized - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:08 pm: I will be interested to see what lunacy the Comptroller cites for not paying them. But then again, we don’t seem to get too caught up in this state with disobeying laws. - Anon - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:08 pm: ROE’s provide valuable services to school districts. They provide training, write and administer grants, oversee truancy, and provide teacher certification to name a few. From personal experience I can tell you that ROE’s serve schools in order to offer students a quality education. - Demoralized - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:09 pm: By the way, they will get paid sooner rather than later. There’s no way they will not sue. A judge will take about 5 seconds to order them paid. - Pleased in Kankakee - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:12 pm: It seems that few know the duties of the office until the need services. That was the case in Kankakee County. We have issues with truant youth and it was our Regional Supt. That has put into place a Truancy Review Board to help these young people in our area. Quietly they saw the need and found a solution. In our community the Regional Supt. Serves us and our children. They are doing their job and should be paid. - Tough Guy - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:13 pm: ROE’s are a relic that could be done by the SBE especially with the capability of the internet. I served on a county board for a mumber of years and could not believe the salaries of the office and the number of people that worked there. It appeared there was a lot of duplication or functions that would be better handled by the local school districts themselves. We split the costs with another county but still felt it was not the best use of taxpayer money especially when we needed more deputies and assistant state’s attorneys. - Thinker - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:14 pm: Seems to me the services provided by ROEs are mandated and needed by the schools. By eliminating ROEs we take $$ out of one place and move it over to another. Either way the services are paid by us as Illinois citizens. Let’s keep a system in place that works! - Southern Illinois Educator - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:29 pm: Our ROE provides exceptional service to me and my district. They touch almost every aspect of my job. Providing great professional development, helping with our truant and homeless students, and doing certification work. I value having an expert close who can help me deal with the continued mandates that come out of Springfield. My Regional Superintendent is hardly a political hack. He is a great guy who really cares about the students in our area. Take him and his office away and we will really be hurting. - Anon - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:33 pm: The ROEs provide many services to the districts in their regions, whether the people in those districts realize it or not. The ROEs are able to serve a number of districts for lower cost than if each district had to assume those responsibilities - centralization of these services makes sense. - Incredulous - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:39 pm: What are people talking about? All my school friends love the office by us, and they swear they’d never want to do the grunt work that these offices do. It’s too easy for people to take pot shots when they have no idea what they’re talking about, and only school people work with the ROEs. The Governor’s Office doesn’t look like it has any idea what it’s doing… - ex-principal - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:40 pm: Part of the deal here is the huge number of rules and regulations and expectations heaped upon our schools. To deal with all the requirements, and to attempt real improvement, the ROE’s are vital. If we want to get rid of them, we would first need to eliminate hundreds of rules for schools and teachers. As it is, if the ROE’s are eliminate, it will cost us, (mark my words) a FORTUNE to have people drive from Springfield to all OVER THE STATE to deal with all the things the ROE’s deal with now. We will spend $50 million to save $10 million. The people criticizing ROE’s haven’t seen what really happens. Right now, it will be a money loser. To do it right, first cut hundreds of requirements for schools and teachers. If that happens first, then MAYBE it could work to reduce ROE’s. - Learner - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:50 pm: Schools have had to cut budgets & staff- then will be expected to do the roe roles, really? Plus schools will lose millions in grants & funding if no roe…how is this helpful to education? Keep the roe’s. - Not a Newcomer - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 5:59 pm: In response to Vaught’s addition: I guess Pat Quinn really does look out for the average working guy. Of course, working guys who work for the public and try to do a good job don’t count as average. Shameful that Quinn would think it perfectly reasonable to just cut off someone’s salary while he negotiates with the General Assembly, which is something he doesn’t have a good track record of doing. - Disappointed - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:13 pm: I’m always amazed at how many people who have no idea what they’re talking about still insist on making uninformed comments. Do your research on the ROEs before you call for their elimination! There is NO other organization that can provide the services that ROEs provide; services REQUIRED to keep schools running and ensure the education of children. - MK - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:34 pm: There are numerous mandates in state law requiring (yes requiring) services from the regional offices of education including teacher certification, life safety inspections, and dealing with truancy issues. ROE’s also administer grants, provide staff development and are the local outreach of the state board of education. Please research what the ROE’s are required to do before advocating for cutting these vital offices. It will cost more to replace these services in a different format. Our regional supt makes much less money than our district school supt. and provde efficient and necessary services - concerned citizen - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:34 pm: My experience with the ROE has been extensive and extremely positive. Besides receiving immediate help with the certification process, I know that the ROE facilitates many activities in our district that are much more cost effective than our district could have done. The ROE also writes grants that include many districts. Most of the districts would not be eligible for the grant on their own. Many of the programs such as truancy, alternative schools and vocational cooperatives would also not be possible without the ROE. All districts seem to be in dire financial condition at present. It is nonsense to eliminate an office that saves schools and the state more money than it costs. The governor should not be able to create a situation such as this and should go through the legislative process if he wishes to make changes. - Bucket List - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:44 pm: The state law requires the ROEs perform certain tasks and that law has not been changed. The ROEs provide services that include grant distribution, teacher certification, background checks and bus driver training. The infrastructure is already in place at the ROE offices why rip that down and rebuild it in another organization? That certainly won’t be less expensive. - Silence Dogood - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:49 pm: There is a very important point that is clearly being missed, based on some of the comments above. The Governor did not say we do not need the Regional Offices of Education. That is because he and his budget director know for a fact that these services are essential. In a state the size of Illinois, there is no way to have one centralized entity (ISBE) and 800+ school districts serving 2+ million students. What he is saying is that this “cut” is going to be passed on the the local taxpayers! Shame on you for falling for this scam. The offices are not going away, as the regional superintendents have far more duties than those listed here, and this office does not exist for “political hacks” or anything of the sort. Cuts need to be made some places, but that does not make all cuts wise cuts. Anyone who is falling for this truly needs to read the fine print and get informed. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:51 pm: The ROE folks have certainly arrived in force. No one’s saying that the duties of the ROE are not important, it’s just whether you need another layer of government to do it. It’s kind of like townships in urban areas. I’ve lived in rural areas, I get the function of township government there. I’ve lived in Oak Park for 20 years, the township has a very nice building on Oak Park Avenue just south of Lake Street, and I don’t have a clue as to what they do that couldn’t be absorbed by other bodies. It’s nothing personal, Sonny, it’s business. - concerned citizen - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:52 pm: There is no little irony that an elected official who does his/her best to uphold the law is summarily eliminated by a governor who ignores the law. - GeekGirl - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:54 pm: Without the ROEs, the ISBE has to bloat more than the ROE bugdets and will then be able to govern itself without any real insight into the local school districts. Hardly seems as if this move, if ISBE does take over the basic ROE responsibilities, will end up maintaining the heart of the US government - checks and balances. The offices provide much more than just teacher certifications - there is teacher training, background checking, and GED classes/tests to just name a few. This doesn’t make any sense, and seems counterproductive since all it will do is bog down the state in more legal battles in the best case scenario. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:54 pm: ===The Governor did not say we do not need the Regional Offices of Education. That is because he and his budget director know for a fact that these services are essential.=== Wow, do you have a short memory or what? He proposed eliminating the regional superintendents back in February. Take a breath. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 6:59 pm: ===What he is saying is that this “cut” is going to be passed on the the local taxpayers! === And that cannot be done without legislation. In October, at the earliest. - Pat Robertson - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:00 pm: ==But we are telling folks to do their jobs without pay for a couple of months… Seriously?== Just wait for the next round of furlough days for the merit comp employees. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:01 pm: ===Anyone who is falling for this truly needs to read the fine print and get informed. === I think you need to get yourself informed. - Chi-Town - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:08 pm: We have a Governor who’s in way over his head. After all, the guy lost 98 of 102 counties in the election. The Governor is clueless when it comes to K-12 education and his budget advisors are both reckless and irresponsible. ROE’s are mandated by the Illinois School Code and those services are essential for downstate schools. Let’s review: tax hike, massive cuts to transportation, forced consolidation proposals, threats of pension reform, and now elimination of Regional Superintendents. It all adds up to a one term Governor. - Informed Citizen - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:18 pm: I’m shocked that our governor has such blatant disregard for our legislators, our educators and our children. The ROEs were created by the state legislation with the input of the local school districts to support and strengthen education at the local level for a reason. If the governor had done some research, he would have discovered that almost all 50 states have realized that there is a need for intermediate educational service agencies to support their school districts and educators. [http://www.aesa.us/research.html] Has the governor carried out research that contradicts what the other states have determined to be the best format for developing high-performing and successful adults? This is a crass political move that will cripple the already overburdened educational system in our state. - kingfish - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:19 pm: Apparently, lots of people have no idea at all what regional superintendents do. How about this one as an example? Let’s let school districts check their own buildings for safety, be sure their teachers are properly credentialed and assigned (according to law), go after their own truants (even the ones they don’t want back inschool), and make sure their own teachers do the professional development the las requires them to do. Or maybe ISBE could do all that? I don’t think so. Good idea, Governor, let’s ignore the law if we don’t like what it sAYS. I’LL TRY THAT NEXT TIME A COP STOPS ME FOR SPEEDING. - Portsider - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:24 pm: I am glad to see comments that not only question constitutionality but also point out the great benefits to education that ROE’s–particularly in rural areas–provide. The Regional Superintendents are appreciated by school districts in their area as well as their constituents who sometimes want to voice concerns to an elected official with knowledge of the educational system. Important tasks like teacher certification and building safety are handled by ROE’s in an impartial manner and issues of property annexation requests to neighboring school districts are handled. Bus driver training and fingerprinting of school employees are two items in which our ROE assists. Being a liaison between ISBE and local districts is a major benefit of the position. - Prarie Person - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:35 pm: Illinois has yet another governor who must think he is above the law! ROE’s are mandated by the Illinois School Code in which many of their services are also delineated. I agree the governor is not ’saying’ to get rid of the ROE’s. However, by choosing to eliminate funding at the 11th hour, he is making it nearly impossible for the ROE’s to keep their doors open. The problem is the governor hasn’t given the ROE’s a method to obtain alternate funding. It is a folly to think cash strapped school districts have extra money - and doesn’t the state owe districts millions they need just to provide education for our children? If the ROE’s close, for even a short amount of time while this mess is sorted out, the possibility of putting school districts, administrators and teachers in violation of the law is very real. Let’s fund the ROS’s now; look at this situation of funding in realistic detail; and not put our districts, administrators, and teachers at risk. - Chi-Town - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 7:54 pm: Remember when ISBE was an independent agency and was a true advocate for students across Illinois. That’s when State Superintendents actually had the courage to speak out against things like this. Today, we have no leadership at all from ISBE. Still no communications to school districts from State Supt. Chris Koch or ISBE about anything related to the ROE’s. Guess K-12 education remains on auto pilot until further notice. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 8:14 pm: ==After all, the guy lost 98 of 102 counties in the election.– Always fascinating. A powerful Jedi Mind Trick must be at work that it has any meaning at all to anyone. What do you get for winning 98 counties? Green Stamps? To me, the only thing that it reveals is the abject stupidity of the recent state GOP 101-county “strategy.” Nearly forty percent of all votes are cast in Cook County, savvy? There are plenty of real conservatives living there, too (remember Reagan Democrats?). You need to do better than 30% there to win statewide. Tell me you GOP mathematicians didn’t attend Illinois schools, please. In all honesty, I was convinced long ago that Mike Madigan secretly runs the state GOP apparatus. Nothing else makes sense. How else do you explain the self-sabotage? I mean, after sabotaging their own nominee, covertly then overtly in the press, the state GOP appartchiks had a chance to pick ANYONE to run for Senate and they picked Alan Keyes. I’d swallow the Warren Report hook, line and sinker before I’d believe there wasn’t a sinister conspiracy behind that. Then you have Andy McKenna. As party chair, rather than building consensus for the most electable candidate, he sabotaged the party for his own laughable candidacy, ensuring a jam-packed primary that resulted in Bill Brady, perhaps the only candidate other than Dan Proft that Pat Quinn could beat in a historic GOP year nationwide. Now the new guy, Pat Brady (is his middle name Ryan?), spends all his time taking juvenile pot shots at the guys who already cleaned his clock, rather than offering the vision of a GOP alternative. Illinois could really use a Republican Party. I guess Madigan just won’t let it happen. - Charlie - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 8:56 pm: Seems to me that Gov. Guinn does not know the laws and what the Regional Offices of Education are required to do BY LAW. - Silence Dogood - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 9:06 pm: Rich, ===Wow, do you have a short memory or what? He proposed eliminating the regional superintendents back in February. Take a breath.=== Yes, he did say that “back in February.” And “last week” he referenced not wanting to get rid of the offices and instead pass this cost along to local taxpayers, just like he wants to do with state-mandated transportation related costs. You tell me to “take a breath” and at 7:01 p.m. to get myself informed. Please tell me what it is I am missing that obviously has your attention. I simply said that everyone is talking about this as a cut, when that is clearly not what Quinn is suggesting, per your own update to this article on the front page. - Dreamliner - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 9:14 pm: After looking at some of these posts, it’s evident that there are some people that have no idea as to what the ROE does. Teacher certification, compliance assurance, HLS inspections, professional development for certified and classified staff, truancy, operating alternative educational facilities for at-risk students, and many others tasks mandated by ISBE. Please don’t undervalue, by politicizing, the need for these services. The ROEs are an invaluable asset to local school districts and the children they serve. - former educator - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 9:24 pm: Educators and school districts could not function without the ROEs. You people are clueless as to what functions are processed at the ROEs. If districts had to hire people to perform all the things that are mandated by the state, we would be spending millions more dollars. Have you ever tried to call and get an answer from ISBE? Impossible!!! They are so understaffed that a teacher or school district can never reach anyone. That’s what the ROEs do! They are there when the districts and teachers need them. - WillCountyteacher - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 9:32 pm: For educators and community members the ROEs are so much more responsive than ISBE. The day to day operations of this office are so unkown by many..it is a needed arm for the state board. I guarantee the negative comments above are from people that have no clue what the office does. If you don’t want a regional office–stop our law-makers from mandating so many rules and regulation. Furthermore, it is ususlly good to have a PLAN before you make a drastic move and work with others to accomplish that plan. I support our Regional Offices. Illinos State Government is nuts. Can we PLEASE get some intelligent people in office!? - reform - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 9:49 pm: The county of Cook no longer has a ROE, the office being dismantled at the request of suburban school districts the office was supposed to serve. If the state’s largest county can get along without one, why is it impossible for smaller counties? - According to him - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 9:55 pm: I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what a Regional Supt must have done to Quinn to get in his cross-hairs. This is good old-fashioned politics at its worst. Regional Supts are mandated by law; their salaries are mandated by law; their duties are mandated by law. Quinn proposed eliminating the Regional Supts in February. That didn’t work, so now, hey, let’s just cut their salary line item out of the budget - maybe they’ll go away. NOT. Quinn’s middle name must be Blago. He’s on his way to costing this state more money for needless lawsuits. And justified lawsuits at that. Someone please tell Quinn that he needs to re-educate himself on Illinois law and the Illinois School Code! Perhaps his Regional Supt could help him with that! - Anonymous - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 10:30 pm: =How else do you explain the self-sabotage?= word, have you considered that maybe the “GOP” have “self-diagnosed” and determined that they’re so “ill” right now, that drastic measures to save themselves are not required, or are inppropriate? Might explain why they keep trying to eat their own. There seems to be a pattern to their behavior. They might be “cleaning house”. - The REAL Anonymous fka Anonymous - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 10:56 pm: Sorry. That last one was me. Need to remember that even though I seldom post any more, I should use my “new” handle with all of the faux Anons who have been hanging out here for a while. - Shemp - Wednesday, Jul 6, 11 @ 11:50 pm: So is this taking away from the local replacement tax that cities use to offset costs in the general funds and local police and fire pension funds? Or is it replacement tax earmarked for other places? - Hanging on - Thursday, Jul 7, 11 @ 10:52 am: Will this be STRIKE 3 for the governor’s of Illinois who do not have a good track record and don’t care about the laws of the state, or think they are above the law until legally prosecuted? The ROE’s provide valuable services to the community such as teacher certification, GED testing, truancy, performing regulatory functions as directed by the Illinois School Code and ISBE, fingerprinting just to name a few. The ROE’s and their staff need support from the community members and the governor, not elimination or worry about how they will be funded! - Regional Office of Education Supporter - Thursday, Jul 7, 11 @ 11:08 am: What appears on the surface to be an attempt to save school districts and the state of Illinois money ultimately will reduce the amount of funding generated by ROEs and place a greater financial burden on these same districts. It is my understanding that ROEs provide services for less than “$7.00 per student.” If schools in the state or even the ISBE attempted to replicate these services it would be far more than that amount. In a document I read I noted where ROEs and ISCs generated $12,800,000 in new grant programs for students and provided $9,500,000 in approximate savings through consortia and cooperative programs. I hope that the legislature and the governor will take that into consideration when determining the need for continued financial support. In terms of funding the ROEs through CPPRT, this is just another smoke and mirror tactic to rob Peter to pay Paul. CPPRT is a direct revenue stream that school districts receive and it would be another financial hit for kids. What is the difference between doing this and cutting General State Aid by another $9 million if not solely for political gain? This is a question I would ask of Mr. Vaught. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.