The next big showdown
Friday, Jul 7, 2017 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Keep in mind that the bills dealing with this issue, from the GOPas well as the Democrats. contain the same language about making school aid funding contingent on the evidence-based reform change…
Illinois got its long awaited budget Thursday afternoon after the House, briefly delayed by a possible hazardous materials situation at the state Capitol, voted to override vetoes by Gov. Bruce Rauner.
But the state’s 800-plus school districts, including the broke Chicago Public Schools, will have to wait a little longer to see their financial problems resolved. […]
The measures House members approved on Thursday do authorize more spending for schools — about $350 million more throughout the state with one of the most inequitable school funding system in the nation — but don’t include the new funding formula for doling out that money. That formula, known as an “evidence-based funding model” is spelled out in separate legislation, including one bill, Senate Bill 1, that has passed both houses of the Legislature but has been targeted for veto by Rauner once it lands on his desk. The other bill, introduced by Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington), hasn’t been voted on at all.
Will CPS get more money then?
A little, but not the big money it needs to balance its books. The budget bills do contain additional statewide spending for school matters: $50 million extra on early childhood education, $57 million more for transportation, and $3.2 million more for agricultural education. CPS wouldn’t say what its cut would amount to.
The budget bills also would raise new tax revenue — which the Illinois Comptroller’s office said would allow it to cut checks for a remaining $850 million in late block grant payments to CPS and other districts across the state — but there’s no immediate cash infusion, spokesman Abdon Pallasch said.
- Anon - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:19 am:
Schools had better get used to spending less. There is little to no help coming from the state because the increased tax money is already accounted for and with the pension spending increases that will be surging there is no money in the budget to invest (code word for more spending) in the budget.
Not to mention that borrowing money at the types of interest rates CPS has should be criminal. That was not an answer to their problems, and the wild amount of interest they are paying is wasted money they should be going to the kids.
Get your expenses in line with your revenues. Don’t go to the equivalent of a payday lender and then plead poverty when the interest payments cripple your budget.
- bamatthews - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:35 am:
Anon 10:19: trust me, schools are used to spending less. They’ve been receiving prorated funding from the State essentially this entire decade. The school funding system in Illinois broken, inadequate, and unfair. And, it forces schools to over-rely on property taxes, hurting poorer communities even more. Is SB1 or similar the solution? I don’t know, but it sure seems like a worthy effort. Regardless, the State needs to take responsibility for their portion of school funding, and that requires revenue.
- ILLannoyed - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:39 am:
All but 1 school is use to spending less. CPS still has an overly bloated administrative office, and caved to CTU by continuing to pick up their 9% pension contributions.
- Arsenal - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:46 am:
I note that Rauner frequently touts more money for schools as his big accomplishment (he has slim pickins’, to say the least). Vetoing this budget muddies that up.
- winners and losers - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:57 am:
As someone stated in a posting, SB 1 is a sham and a fraud.
It is a sham because local schools have to do NOTHING: SB 1 requires them to do NONE of its 27 “evidence based” elements.
It is a fraud because Illinois will NOT provide $8 billion in NEW money over the next 10 years for K-12 education.
- Tequila Mockingbird - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 11:35 am:
The Illinois school funding formula is an embarrassment. Failure to fix that means higher local property taxes and even more inequity between districts. Add that burden to the income tax increase and we all lose.
- Streator Curmudgeon - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 12:05 pm:
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating. There are 49 other states with school funding formulas.
Can’t Illinois just copy the most efficient one?
- winners and losers - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 12:47 pm:
=The Illinois school funding formula is an embarrassment==
No, the failure to fund, the failure to raise the foundation level for 9 years (since 2008) is the embarrassment.
- winners and losers - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 12:49 pm:
“Twenty years ago a freshman Republican state senator cast a vote that killed a plan to cut property taxes. She went on to become the first woman to hold a caucus leadership position in the Illinois Legislature, even though property taxes skyrocketed during her years in office. Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, retired from the Illinois Senate last week and was hailed by liberals and conservatives for her courage in hammering out a ‘grand bargain’ with Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, designed to end the state’s budget stalemate. I smiled at all the praise lavished on her because I was in Springfield in 1997 when she cast the deciding vote that destroyed Republican Gov. Jim Edgar’s bid to reform school funding and the property tax system. That bit of history is long forgotten, but I’m going to remind people because it may well be a key reason Illinois is in such sorry financial shape today.”
http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/20-years-of-political-failure-in-illinois/
- winners and losers - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 12:53 pm:
While the increase is appealing, District 117 Superintendent Steve Ptacek said he doesn’t know where the money would come from.
Currently, funding for schools, while approved by the state, has not been fully paid out, including some general state aid payments and categorical payments.
“I don’t see where the state will get the money to fund these increases,” Ptacek said.
Waverly Superintendent Dustin Day said a bill that makes school funding more equitable, without also creating a winner-loser scenario is good, but he is skeptical about the reliability of the state to fund it.
Day said, so far this year, Waverly has yet to receive $389,000 in state aid and categorical payments.
“The question is,” Day said, “is the formula the problem, or is it a funding problem?”
“Funding has been an issue since 2008.”
“Would the district be in this shape if funding was at the levels agreed upon?”
“I don’t think things would be this bleak if the state contributed what it said it would.”
Ptacek said the bill isn’t necessarily needed during the June board meeting.
“If the state just gave districts what they say they are going to get, if they paid GSA and categorical payments, I don’t see many districts having the financial problems they are having,” Ptacek said.
Jacksonville Journal Courier, July 5, 2017