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Big cuts for education, while prison funding is restored

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Illinois

* Chris Wills at the Associated Press looks at education budget cuts…

The key measure of spending on elementary and secondary education would be cut by $210 million, or 3.1 percent. When reductions in federal funds are included, the reduction tops $855 million.

State government is supposed to ensure a basic amount of money is available for all students, whether they live in rich districts or poor ones. That foundation level for the coming year is $6,119, and the budget cuts would mean Illinois provides only 89 percent of that amount, down from 95 percent last year.

The number of children getting help from early childhood education programs will fall sharply. Nearly 7,000 children lost services in the last round of cuts, the State Board of Education says, and now the service is slated to lose an additional 7.6 percent of its funds.

This year , the state will help provide about 194 million free or low-cost lunches to needy children. That service faces a 45 percent cut next year.

* Sen. Kimberly Lightford isn’t amused…

This year, the budget demanded by the Illinois House cuts another $210 million from education, bringing the total shortchanging of our schools’ and students’ needs to more than a half-billion dollars. It means next year the state-aid payments might stop in May while students are still in school.

This is unacceptable.

Senate Bill 7, the reform package I helped negotiate last year, was approved 112-1 in the House, 54-0 in the Senate. You’d think this overwhelming majority would similarly demand the resources needed for success. Instead, I watched many of these so-called reformers turn their backs on our children and our public schools. In one vote the General Assembly puts teachers and administrators on notice that they need to perform to higher standards, only to turn around and repeatedly slash funding for their training and development.

Make no mistake, resources are available. The Senate twice put the spotlight on hundreds of millions of dollars in special state accounts that somehow annually escape scrutiny. It is time to make education funding the priority we all claim it should be.

The path we’re headed down dooms our hard-fought reforms and, more important, our children.

They deserve better. They deserve more.

The higher education budget was cut about 6 percent, or $152 million.

* The General Assembly cut education, but restored lots of funding to the prisons budget, keeping facilities open that Gov. Pat Quinn wanted to shutter. But despite those restorations, inmate halfway houses are still closing. The Fox Valley facility will shut down in August…

Gov. Pat Quinn still intends to close the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in August despite receiving enough money from state lawmakers to keep the Aurora facility open.

The women’s transitional center on North Lake Street houses about 130 low-level offenders who work to get back into the community after being released from prison. The center provides education, counseling and workforce training.

In the budget sent to the governor last week, lawmakers gave Quinn $18.8 million to keep the Aurora facility and a number of similar centers across the state open.

Women housed at the Fox Valley ATC work to gain full-time jobs and also participate in GED and college classes, and receive counseling on life skills, child care, anger management and avoiding substance abuse.

* Meanwhile, layoffs are on temporary hold at Tamms…

Worker layoffs at Tamms prison are on hold for now. The supermax prison was slated for closure because of budget issues, but the General Assembly proposed a budget that could keep it open. Apparently the state layoff procedure started on Monday, but ended yesterday reportedly because of a mistake by Central Management Services. Governor Pat Quinn has the final say on whether to close the facility.

* And the Singer Mental Health Center is still on track for closure…

The fate of one of Rockford’s Mental Health Centers is still up in the air. Chris asked us on Facebook when the Singer Center might be forced to shut its doors.

Here’s what we found out: a final date hasn’t been set. Senator Dave Syverson tells us that Governor Quinn’s office must first decide what will happen to the patients there. The plan is to shut it down by this fall, but it could be closer to the end of the year before any action is taken.

* Related…

* Lawmakers vote to reinstate early prisoner release - Would require annual reports, include inmate evaluations

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 9:41 am

Comments

More important to protect prison guards than hungry poor children, sick indigents, or poor kids who can’t afford college. We’ve got to have our priorities!

Comment by reformer Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 10:29 am
Once again, IL opts to pay later … in less skilled workers and, probably, more crime in 15 - 20 years.

Comment by Retired Non-Union Guy Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 11:06 am
In relation to Senator Lightford’s comments. To praise passage of SB7 at this time seems truly sad. Currently the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board has not even developed administrative rules for these changes. The reason was simple the IL Gen Assembly from 2009 to 2011 cut funding for the IERLB by 10.8%.

Even today the IERLB is refusing to rule on issues that are being placed in front of it over the Chicago section of SB7, because there are no administrative rules. If you are going to praise a law you passed, then it should be based on the reality of that law not some happy talk.

Comment by Rod Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 11:27 am
Prison funding drives me nuts. I often wonder if budgetary “reform” advocates (not elected officials - outsiders) and the TEA Party types realize the amount of money that is spent on the “War on Drugs” and the prison system in our fair state.

Comment by Team Sleep Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 11:44 am
The fate of our criminal justice system is often decided by pressure to keep guards employed. It is always distasteful, but in a budget crisis, it becomes more stark.

Investing more in prisons while making draconian cuts to health care, mental health treatment, transitional centers and social services is short-sighted. It will create and multiply painful social problems that are more expensive to solve.

Comment by state worker Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 11:47 am
Remember, for the sake of the children we must deal with debt. By cutting their health care and education much more than other stuff.

One thing we can feel good about is at least the unprecedented greed and self absorbtion of our elected officials transcend partisan divides!

Comment by Sam Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 12:38 pm
Maintaining the proper balance between a sub-standard public education system and a penal system to absorb its failures is always a difficult problem. We can rest assured that the teachers’ unions and the unionized penal system employees will strike the right balance via their marionettes in the GA.

Comment by Cook County Commoner Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 12:45 pm
The plan at Tamms is to build new buildings and repurpose it as a medium-security prison for $8 Million or $16 Million dollars and then keep it operating at $25 Million dollars a year.

The Republicans want to do this because they want to keep all the facilities open. The Dems want it because….???

Comment by state worker Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 1:02 pm
Better to slash estate taxes, as was done as part of the Sears/CBOT deal, than to spare hungry kids and sick people. Multi-millionaires count too!

Comment by reformer Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 1:04 pm
Why did we need that income tax increase? Oh, yeah, Quinn said it was needed to support education and prevent further cuts.

Comment by Wensicia Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 1:31 pm
There’s something very depressing about cutting hundreds of millions for schools and universities, but restoring money for prisons.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 2:07 pm
I guess the Democrats are more frightened by the prison unions than the teacher unions—how else could you explain this?

Comment by benevolent hegemon Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 2:23 pm
“There’s something very depressing about cutting hundreds of millions for schools and universities, but restoring money for prisons.”

Yes. But then, there’s a WHOLE LOT of things depressing about the NEED for that much prison space.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 2:47 pm
bene hege
House Republicans helped to shape the budget. Keeping open downstate prisons and other state facilities was their priority, along with protecting the docs.

Comment by reformer Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 2:57 pm
To Anonymous 2:47pm: “… there’s a WHOLE LOT of things depressing about the NEED for that much prison space.”

We don’t need that much prison space except to keep AFSCME happy and give Southern Illinois guards their jobs.

Illinois is pretty much the lone state that jacked up its incarceration rates in the past 3 years by 4000 people by ending the old MGT program. So we have an especially inflated prison population, but nothing a few decent policies couldn’t solve. Instead, our Democratic leaders appropriated more massive prison spending.

Other states are reducing population and closing prisons. Even Georgia has come up with a master plan to bring prison costs down.

Incidentally, here is an article about how we have so many people in prison largely in part because we increased sentencing astronomically.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/average-prison-stay-grew-36-percent-in-two-decades.html

Comment by state worker Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 3:20 pm
-Maintaining the proper balance between a sub-standard public education system and a penal system to absorb its failures is always a difficult problem-

Failure on the home front has far more to do with the prison population than failure of education or lack of funding.

The prisons need to stay open because they are overcrowded and we don’t want a lawsuit to order the release of thousands of violent offenders like

Comment by Generation X Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 3:26 pm
I hit send too quickly. We will save money by keeping these open than settling the lawsuits for inhumane conditions which would be sure to come

Comment by Generation X Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 3:28 pm
No one should be surprised by this……we always give lip service to how important Education is but the people saying it only mean THEIR childrens’ education. When it comes to paying for anyone else, slash it! No one really thinks Education is important because if they did, none of this would be a problem. By the way, I thought the lottery was supposed to provide a windfall of funding for our state Education budget. Now it’s the increase in state tax. Gee, where does all that money go that the schools don’t get?

Comment by Inactive Friday, Jun 8, 12 @ 3:46 pm