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* Belleville News-Democrat…
As lawmakers prepare to return to Springfield to address the budget impasse, officials in Belleville District 118 have been calculating how long its 11 schools could operate next year without state funding.
Gov. Bruce Rauner asked lawmakers to return to the Capitol from June 21-30 for a special session. The new fiscal year begins July 1.
Assistant Superintendent Ryan Boike said during the school board meeting Tuesday night that District 118 could possibly get through September without money from the state based on the revenue it currently has.
“Getting through that last half of September could be a challenge,” Boike told board members.
* Daily Herald…
If the July 1 start of the new fiscal year arrives without an agreement, “all the funding stops,” said Jeff King, chief operations officer at U-46, the state’s second-largest school district with 40,000 students. Cuts like eliminating after-school activity busing and hiring would come first.
“We would be out of money by wintertime. We would use all of our reserves,” King said. By the end of February, U-46 would need to borrow to make payroll or else close schools, he said.
Other suburban schools echoed his warning.
“If a budget is not passed and/or funding is not provided to schools, then we could continue operations using fund balances through the end of November,” said Bill Johnston, assistant superintendent of business and operations at Round Lake Unit District 116, which has 7,300 students.
* SJ-R…
The Springfield School District could open this fall, but would run out of money by January if state government fails to approve an education budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, Superintendent Jennifer Gill said Monday. […]
Also looming, Gill noted, is a property tax freeze, a measure strongly supported by Rauner that passed the Senate but sits idle in the House.
While a freeze may be popular, Gill said, it would result in District 186 not being able to collect an additional $1.9 million in local property tax dollars, based on financial projections.
“We enter a time we have never seen before,” she said.
* WSIL TV…
[Harrisburg Superintendent Mike Gauch] says the districts reserves are depleted through years of pro-ration of state funds.
“We’re $700,000 in the hole this year and we do not have the reserves in Harrisburg to be able to weather those kinds of storms every year,” says Gauch.
* DNAInfo Chicago…
Chicago Public Schools will open Sept. 5 as scheduled — regardless of whether state lawmakers have reached an agreement on a budget, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday.
After rattling off a host of specifics designed to tout the progress made by Chicago students during his time in office, Emanuel said the opening of schools for the 2017-18 academic year won’t depend on Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly reaching a budget deal after an impasse of more than 700 days.
“Parents don’t need anxieties about that,” said Emanuel, who used his education speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to bash Rauner for failing to reach an agreement on a state budget. “Chicago will be open for the future. I can’t say that about the rest of Illinois.”
Emanuel did not elaborate on how cash-strapped CPS would find the funds to open in September if the state does not start paying its bills. Because of the impasse, the state owes more than $15 billion to a variety of vendors and agencies, including school districts across the state, according to Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza.
McHenry High School District 156, which oversees McHenry East and West high schools, is expecting $5 million from the state in fiscal 2018 – $3.4 million in general state aid and $1.4 million in categoricals, which reimburse for expenses such as transportation and special education, Superintendent Ryan McTague said.
State funding accounts for 16 percent of the district’s budget – like other county school districts, local property taxes make up the majority.
“Obviously, if we didn’t receive any of that [state funding], that would be a pretty massive hole,” McTague said.
The fact that Illinois has funded education throughout the impasse does not mean that districts have been made whole, or even within a timely manner. Schools are among the vendors who are in the state’s $15 billion backlog of unpaid bills. District 156 still is waiting on payment for three of its four categoricals this school year – the most recent categorical payment it received was for the 2016 school year, McTague said.
Although McTague said he believes the district could make it the whole year, other districts statewide do not.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 2:38 pm
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Schools just need to “hang in there” for the TA agenda.
Comment by Moby Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 3:01 pm
“While a freeze may be popular, Gill said, it would result in District 186 not being able to collect an additional $1.9 million in local property tax dollars, based on financial projections.”
They already know they are raising the levy by 1%?
I hope the best for all kids but the $191million they are spending now, isn’t giving them too impressive of results.
https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/district.aspx?source=trends&Districtid=51084186025
very interesting website to click around reviewing.
Comment by cdog Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 3:07 pm
Has anyone ever brought up the idea of inter-school borrowing? Many districts have cash reserves. How about using some MOUs and intergovernmental agreements to move money around? Its a time of emergency. That money is the taxpayers’ money. We all pay into the pie. It should be used to help other schools get through while the state deals with the larger crisis.
Comment by hot chocolate Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 3:08 pm
After months pretending Senate Bill 1 would automatically INCREASE funding for schools (just look at the websites of DEM Senators), now almost everyone, including school superintendents, are starting to panic.
SB 1 provides ZERO money.
Now supporters are beginning to admit it will cost $6.5 BILLION today to fund SB 1.
And $6.5 billion today, if spread out over 10 years is about $8 BILLION.
As someone just stated in an email:
The question is not where $350 million in new
money each year will come from, but where
$800 million in new money each year will come from.
SENATE BILL 1 IS THE GREATEST UNFUNDED FUNDING
MANDATE EVER TO PASS THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE -
a funding mandate that will NEVER be funded.
Comment by winners and losers Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 3:26 pm
There are 2 separate but connected issues regarding school funding. One is equity and the other adequacy. SB 1 is by far a more equitable system than the current one. Adequcy is the budget.
It is up to the legislature and the governor to determine what priority is given to public education in the budget. Even absent any new funding for education, SB 1 is an improvement over the current system, which is the most inequitable in the country. While SB 1 directs the lion’s share of any new money to those districts most in need it also protects those districts in times of cuts as opposed to the current system that disproportionately harms districts with low property tax wealth that depend on state funding the most.
But critics are right about one thing: No budget means no money for any school funding plan.
Comment by Decaf Coffee Party Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 3:41 pm
Not to be too picky about semantics, but SB 1 is not an unfunded mandate. It is the formula by which the state would disperse public education money if there ever is a budget. If there is no money, no one has to do anything. Some schools would not open their doors, others would be able to go a period of time ranging from weeks to months.
There are more than 100 great examples of unfunded mandates that have been placed on schools — things they must do on their own dime. SB 1 just is not one of them.
Comment by Decaf Coffee Party Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 3:49 pm
If there’s no budget, I mean full budget, not a top-gap, by July 1st, all Illinois schools should not open in August. That will force the spineless in Springfield to do something.
Comment by Ryan Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 3:56 pm
==SB 1 is not an unfunded mandate….If there is no money, no one has to do anything==
No and Yes. If SB 1 is not a mandate to fund adequacy, what is it?
However SB 1 does remove almost all requirements on what local schools spend money on, so “no one has to do anything”.
Comment by winners and losers Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 4:52 pm
==the most inequitable in the country==
Real money to schools may be the most inequitable, but the school funding FORMULAS are not.
As I have quoted Jim Broadway (Illinois School News Service) and Ben Schwarm (Illinois Association of School Boards) before: Both agree that THE problem is NOT the formulas but that the foundation level has NOT been increased in 9 years, since 2008.
And a property tax freeze will just make the problem even worse.
Comment by winners and losers Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 4:59 pm
@Decaf Coffee gets it. Very well said.
@Whiners and losers- you just don’t understand and clearly you don’t want to. Sad.
Comment by JS Mill Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 5:01 pm
JSMill - Yes, sad, when you personally attack instead of stating facts and arguments.
Comment by winners and losers Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 5:13 pm
@whiners- you can’t take the moral high ground when you repeatedly attack school admin.
Nice try.
Learn to read and you would understand.
Comment by JS Mill Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 6:38 pm
JSMill - And we wonder why some school administrators are held in such low esteem?
I wonder how you would treat a teacher who wrote comments like yours.
Comment by winners and losers Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 7:32 pm
No need for anyone to be alarmed. Schools will open in the fall. Football aeason will not be compromised. Trust me.
Comment by Blue dog dem Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 7:43 pm
=I wonder how you would treat a teacher who wrote comments like yours.=
Well, if they repeatedly made false or purposely false statements like yours and attached other educators I would tell them that directly. I would provide accurate info as I have.
I would say what I said to you. If you cannot take it, don’t dish it out.
= And we wonder why some school administrators are held in such low esteem?=
Because some teachers live in a narrow world and don’t care to hear the truth. When they do it is shot the messenger time.
Comment by JS Mill Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 10:00 pm
== Football season will not be compromised. ==
LOL!
But you can’t say the same about basketball.
Comment by RNUG Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 10:01 pm
I agree SB 1 creates an obligation to promote a defined form of equity and that costs money as everyone admits. If the new dollars are not appropriated for years to come then let’s call it an unfunded obligation instead of a mandate, ok?
Comment by Rod Thursday, Jun 22, 17 @ 5:28 am