Amends the Illinois Procurement Code. Provides that an exemption from the Code for purchases of care shall continue except as otherwise provided. Amends the Illinois Public Aid Code. Provides that, beginning on the effective date of this amendatory Act, any contract the Department of Healthcare and Family Services enters into with a managed care organization shall be procured in accordance with the Illinois Procurement Code. Effective immediately.
The bill passed with 38 “Yes” votes, two more than needed to override. The House, however, passed the bill with just 65 votes, six short of what it would take to override an expected veto.
The legislation was filed in the wake of Gov. Rauner’s move to get around the Procurement Code to award billions of dollars in new Medicaid managed care contracts. Some background is here.
* Sen. Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorne Woods), one of the school funding reform negotiators…
“Today’s override of the Governor’s veto was an unnecessary partisan act,” said McConchie. “I firmly believe we could have come to a bi-partisan agreement on school funding reform had negotiations been carried out in good faith.
“As one of the negotiators, I came to the table fully prepared to come to an agreement on how we can better fund our schools. However, good faith discussions never happened. In fact, the bill’s sponsor admitted in the press that he was never really negotiating with us. Instead the Democrats have decided to pursue a path of bailing out Chicago at any cost. It is now up to the House to reject this partisan, regionalistic politics.”
* Comptroller Susana Mendoza…
We encourage Illinois state representatives of both parties to listen to students, parents, teachers and school officials in their districts and vote to override Governor Rauner’s veto of equitable school funding, as state senators of both parties just did. After the House votes to override, our office can begin sending schools the General State Aid they are owed.
* JB Pritzker…
“Today’s action by the Senate is a step towards getting the school funding our students, parents, and teachers across the state deserve,” said JB Pritzker. “Bruce Rauner’s reckless veto left our state’s 852 public school districts without a way to get state funding and even though Rauner agreed with 90 percent of SB 1, he chose to use school funding as leverage to score a political win. Bruce Rauner’s damage is done and he’s proven once again that he is incapable of governing without throwing our state into a crisis.”
* Sen. Daniel Biss…
“There’s no question that overriding Rauner’s veto was the right thing to do. The better questions are how we got here in the first place—to August without school funding and to a billionaire governor with the arrogance to threaten our schools.
“We took a step forward on fixing an immediate problem today. But like the state’s budget, our education funding system will continue to be a problem until we address the underlying rot: a broken tax system that benefits the millionaires, while punishing the middle class.”
* Mayor Rahm Emanuel…
Governor Rauner’s education funding veto brought together rural, suburban and urban educators and legislators in bipartisan opposition to the governor and in support of today’s veto override. This diverse group of educators and leaders knows the Senate’s education bill is right for Illinois children and the governor’s veto is flat wrong. I want to thank Senate President Cullerton and the state Senators who voted on behalf of students and educators. The Senate’s vote is a bipartisan rejection of the governor’s divisive politics and of his repeated attempts to pit children with different backgrounds and from different parts of the state against one another.
* Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago)…
“The governor attempted to remove equity for Chicago from Senate Bill 1 in his amendatory veto and force Chicago Public Schools’ students to pay for a pension problem they did not create. To be truly equitable, school funding reform must recognize the fact that Chicago is the only school district in the state that is responsible for its own pension payments. Senate Bill 1 corrects this inequality and provides pension parity for Chicago Public Schools.
“Today I voted with my colleagues in the Senate to override the governor’s veto and bring Illinois students—both in Chicago and throughout the state—one step closer to a fair school funding formula for the first time in decades. It is time for all Illinois students to have access to a quality education, regardless of where they live.”
* Sen. Tom Rooney (R-Rolling Meadows)…
“We’re supposed to be overhauling our education system to provide equity for all our students and schools. Instead, we’re recrafting a system that preserves the same practice of redirecting state dollars toward one district and burying special deals among the spreadsheets. That’s not equity, that’s disingenuous and ineffective,” said Rooney. “Today’s vote demonstrated that the interest of one district outweighs the needs of the remaining suburban and downstate students. My only hope is that moving forward the House recognizes the importance of fair funding, puts the needs of all students ahead of political agendas and embraces equity as the only path forward for education funding in Illinois.”
I’m sure there will be more.
* Sen. Chris Nybo (R-Elmhurst)…
“I could not support the school funding plan presented in the Senate today, because it does not equitably address funding for all Illinois students. It should not matter where a child is born; every single student has an equal right to earn a quality education. The Governor’s Amendatory Veto made changes to the school funding bill that were both fair and equitable to all 852 school districts in Illinois, and does not unfairly tip the scale toward Chicago schools at the expense of every other school district-like has been done in years past. Senate Bill 1 was not the product of bipartisan negotiations, and that is extremely unfortunate because I truly believe good-faith negotiations and bipartisan progress were possible.”
* Senate President John Cullerton…
“Our students, parents, teachers and taxpayers have waited too long for a needed overhaul of how the state funds public schools. With this bipartisan vote, the Senate moved our state one step closer to getting rid of the worst funding system in the nation. I hope the House will be able to do the same and finally bring the reform Illinois public schools need.”
* During his closing remarks, Sen. Andy Manar addressed this statement by Gov. Rauner during his appearance on the Fox News Channel on Friday…
We passed a good school funding bill on a bipartisan basis that I championed.
But the Democrats and the majority in the House inserted a poison pill, a pension bail out for the city of Chicago, hundreds of millions of dollars every year diverted away from classrooms in the suburbs and down state, so I had to amendtory veto that bill and we’re going to get it fixed so it’s fair and more equitable for everybody.
“Can anybody explain that to me?” Manar asked.
Rauner certainly didn’t have anything to do with the passage of SB1 out of the Senate. Just the opposite. He pulled votes off.
Manar also noted that anyone could have filed a motion to accept the governor’s AV, but nobody did. He said the Senate President was involved in negotiations until late in the evening and early this morning, which is why he waited until the last moment to file an override motion.
…Adding… The Senate Republicans are pushing back hard against the claim that they could’ve filed a motion to accept the AV. They point to Senate Rules (9-3) which don’t appear to allow that. However, Sen. Manar said today that he checked with the parliamentarian, who said it has historically been allowed.
* And Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who was one of the official negotiators on a compromise, claimed the Republicans weren’t interested in any such thing…
KL: You bring new initiatives to every meeting. How do you negotiate without answering questions? Let's tell the real truth here.
* You may recall this unusual letter sent earlier this month by the two Republican legislative leaders to Attorney General Lisa Madigan…
In conclusion, we are concerned that the General Assembly may jeopardize the date on which SB1 may constitutionally become effective if the General Assembly pursues an outright veto override motion. It appears that the decision to delay SB1’s passage until July 31, 2017, may prevent the General Assembly from making an SB1 veto effective before June 1, 2018. If that is the case, the evidence-based funding formula established by SB1 may only be used this August to distribute school funding to schools across the state if the legislature adopts the Governor’s amendatory veto by a three-fifths vote.
AG Madigan issued her response today. Click here to read it. Essentially, she says that the effective date would be the date that the governor’s AV is overridden or the date that the governor certifies that the GA has accepted his recommendations for change.
It’s déjà vu and with uncertainty surrounding the future of school funding in Illinois, Do Your Job, Inc. is debuting a new ad asking legislators to override Governor Rauner.
The ad continues the plea of the education community, reformers, and editorial boards across the state who believe “when you get 90 percent, declare victory.” Much like the state’s budget crisis, it is now up to legislators to do the right thing for the state despite the disastrous decisions made by Governor Rauner. […]
Déjà vu will begin running on digital platforms today.
Do Your Job, Inc. is led by IL Sen. Michael E. Hastings of South Suburban Cook County, IL Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie and Illinois AFL-CIO President Michael T. Carrigan.
It’s déjà vu.
After losing the budget fight, Governor Rauner is targeting our schools.
Principals, teachers and parents statewide support SB1 for fairer funding across the whole state but Rauner has vetoed SB1 creating chaos and another crisis.
Without the funding bill schools will close.
Rauner won’t compromise.
Republicans and Democrats have to fund our schools without him.
Sound familiar?
Tell your legislator override Rauner. Fund our schools.
Gov. Bruce Rauner took to Fox News Channel on Friday for what was billed as his first national television interview — and it backfired badly.
Leading a parade of bad reviews was right-wing commentator/provocateur Ann Coulter, who told her 1.6 million Twitter followers that Rauner “either is retarded or playing retard.”
“His answer to every Q is, “Our system is broken.” Fascinating!” Coulter tweeted during the governor’s interview with FOX News host Bret Baier.
Notwithstanding her completely inappropriate and offensive slur, Coulter was on point in calling out Rauner for his evasive answers.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s plan to reform the school funding formula would send more money to the neediest school districts in Illinois, according to an analysis released today by the Illinois State Board of Education.
ISBE’s analysis found that 97.5 percent of the 852 school districts in Illinois receive more state funding under the governor’s plan compared to Senate Bill 1, as written. Under the governor’s plan, no school district would receive less funding this upcoming school year than it received last year.
“This is what equity and fairness in education funding looks like,” Gov. Rauner said. “Improving Illinois’ education system has been my top priority as governor. I made these changes to Senate Bill 1 because that legislation fails to ensure fairness and equity for all children across Illinois. My changes guarantee that some of our state’s neediest districts will receive significantly more funding.”
But, if you click here and open the spreadsheet, then click the “ISBE analysis” tab and scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see that Chicago Public Schools, with about 20 percent of the state’s students, would gain just $28.7 million over last fiscal year. That’s only about a 2 percent gain for CPS, but according to the governor’s spreadsheet, Rauner’s plan provides for a ten percent overall funding increase to all schools (column C compared to column D).
Even so, something doesn’t appear right. I need more time to compare Rauner’s original spreadsheet (click here) to his newest spreadsheet (click here). Feel free to e-mail me your own thoughts.
* And make extra sure to keep this in mind…
.@GovRauner has released analysis ($) of his AV. Keep in mind these numbers are for 2 yrs only. Everything changes in July, 2020.
Yep, and when it does, things get much worse for CPS and lots of other schools.
…Adding… This is what I was referring to above about some confusing numbers…
Chicago Public Schools would receive $463 million less in funding under Gov. Bruce Rauner’s school funding plan than the measure approved by the Democrat-controlled Illinois General Assembly.
That’s according to an analysis released Saturday afternoon by the Illinois State Board of Education. The district-by-district breakdown was made public a day before the Illinois Senate will reconvene in Springfield to consider an override of Rauner’s amendatory veto of the school funding legislation.
The governor’s original spreadsheet claimed SB1 increases funding for CPS by $293 million. His plan would, he claimed at the time, increase CPS funding by $148 million. His new spreadsheet claims SB1 increases CPS funding by over $490 million, while his AV would increase it by $28 million.
Odd.
…Adding More… The full ISBE report is now online. Click here.
The data indicate CPS would receive $463 million less than under the Democrats’ bill, but Rauner’s office contends it’s only $241 million less because the governor supports picking up $221 million in pension costs for the district. That money has not been approved yet, however.
The governor’s office is trying to count that $221 million twice: Once for all schools and the second time for CPS pensions. Math is apparently quite difficult for the governor.
