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What happens to schools when the pandemic money runs out?

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Illinois

* We’ve talked about this topic before. Capitol News Illinois…

To help schools throughout the country deal with the effects of the pandemic, Congress approved three separate federal relief packages that included billions of dollars in emergency education funds known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER funds.

Illinois’ share of that aid totaled just over $7.8 billion.

The flow of those funds, however, will come to an end when the current federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30, meaning programs and services that have been funded with those federal dollars will either come to an end, or schools will have to fund them through other means.

According to the state’s ESSER Spending Dashboard, about one-third of the money that came to Illinois, or nearly $2.4 billion, went toward salaries for teachers, substitutes, paraprofessionals, and other school personnel, including those who ran summer and after-school learning programs.

“We saw just about over a thousand expenses on what we would call a full-time teacher,” [Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative Director Meg Bates] said. “So we do expect there to be some difficulties this fall with teachers.”

She said she expects a bigger loss in staffing for after-school, summer school and tutoring programs.

“That’s where we expect to see a real cliff, these extended opportunities. We suspect schools will find ways to keep their teacher core relatively intact,” she said.

* In Chicago, the amount of pandemic money spent on salaries was about 50 percent. You may recall my recent newspaper column…

I told Pritzker that I assumed other school districts also put temporary federal money into their permanent spending bases and would also be demanding more state aide. “I don’t think that that’s the job of Springfield, to rescue the school districts that might have been irresponsible with the one-time money they received.”

“Poor fiscal management on the part of a local government is not necessarily the responsibility of Springfield,” he added.

Is CPS poorly fiscally managed? Pritzker at first hedged, then, when pressed, said he’d like to answer the question his own way.

“One-time money shouldn’t be spent for ongoing operations.”

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:25 pm

Comments

=“One-time money shouldn’t be spent for ongoing operations.”=

Captain Obvious should love that one.

Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:28 pm
That seems to be akin to getting a nice Christmas bonus from work and then projecting your personal budget for the upcoming year assuming that you’d be getting that bonus every month on top of your regular salary only to be surprised that, whoops… it was just a one-time thing, because of course it was, and you’re now deep in the black.

Comment by TJ Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:34 pm
deep in the red, I mean, haha

Comment by TJ Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:35 pm
==Poor fiscal management on the part of a local government is not necessarily the responsibility of Springfield==

I mean, the Illinois Constitution might disagree with JB here as it clearly states, “The State shall provide for an efficient system of high
quality public educational institutions and services. Education in public schools through the secondary level shall be free. There may be such other free education as the General Assembly provides by law. The State has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public education.”

==One-time money shouldn’t be spent for ongoing operations.==

Then, perhaps, it shouldn’t be one-time money. Perhaps billionaires should pay their due. The wealthy have hosed this state and gotten exorbitantly wealthy from a well-educated workforce and amazing natural resources while the middle and lower classes continue to lag.

Perhaps JB shouldn’t blame financial woes on “poor fiscal management” by underfunded communities just like we shouldn’t blame impoverished single-mothers on their inability to pay rent when it is really wage theft and a housing market not keeping up with demand that is holding her back.

But billionaires will always billionaire.

Comment by Montessori's Mantle Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:35 pm
===I mean, the Illinois Constitution might disagree with JB here as it clearly states===

Says someone who has apparently never read an IL Supreme Court decision on this topic. The “primary responsibility” line means basically zip.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:54 pm
TJ, is it just me or are you invoking one of my favorite financial education films, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation?

Comment by Blitz Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:06 pm
=== Perhaps billionaires should pay their due. The wealthy have hosed this state and gotten exorbitantly wealthy from a well-educated workforce and amazing natural resources while the middle and lower classes continue to lag.===

Not sure about you but I’m old enough to remember when JB expended a lot of political capital trying to pass a constitutional amendment that would allow the state to do this very thing and get rid of our flat income tax requirement. Of all the things to take the Gov to task for, this isn’t the one.

Comment by Sterling Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:10 pm
===Poor fiscal management on the part of a local government is not necessarily the responsibility of Springfield===

The governor is 100% correct on this one. 100%. Too many times districts squander resources provided by local, state, and federal funding and then look to someone else to fix the issue. In my career the East St Louis school district has been taken over by the state twice for fiscal mismanagement. It might be three times, but I know two for sure. Each time they had local control restored they got into financial trouble again. That isn’t a lack of resources.

They have 300 fewer students than Bloomington SD 87 and nearly double the budget. $143 million compared to $80 million. And yet they continue to struggle financially.

https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?districtId=50082189022

So it isn’t the states fault when local districts misspend their money.

Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:20 pm
Absolutely agree with JS Mill. The school districts should budget appropriately. What were they thinking when they used one time money for routine expenses? If they did that, think of other financial mismanagement they must be responsible for.

Comment by Just a Citizen Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:27 pm
=== Then, perhaps, it shouldn’t be one-time money. Perhaps billionaires should pay their due. ===

Says someone who has apparently not paid attention to the politics of the emergency funding nor that of making billionaires pay their fair share.

Comment by Norseman Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:40 pm
Sterling- ask any economist- you can’t tax your way to growth- between the income tax - corporate tax( highest in US) sales taxes( second highest) and 2nd highest RE taxes( behind NJ)- the existing tax structure I believe puts Illinois at the 5th highest in the Nation- raising the income tax rates won’t attract businesses nor keep mobile folks from moving- Sinxe 2019 Illinois has lost on an annual basis more then 10 billion in income( so about 500 million per year) to outbound migration- those numbers are straight out of the IRS tables recently published- the answer isn’t raising the income tax rates on upper income residents but recognizing that all of the recent policies imposed in the last several years are working against attracting business to the State- sure JB from time to time announces successful overtures but if Illinois was truly pro growth we wouldn’t have the second highest loss in population over the last 5 years-

Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 4:18 pm
@ Montessori’s Mantle -

The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that the language saying the State has primary responsibility for school funding is hortatory, not mandatory.

Comment by JoanP Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 4:27 pm
==Perhaps billionaires should pay their due. ==

I agree and yet bills to increase taxes on the wealthy at the federal level go nowhere and 4 years ago the fair tax lost. You dont seem terribly well informed. Maybe sit back and read comments from experts on the page like JS Mill and Norseman.

Comment by low level Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 4:35 pm
I’d need more details before calling it “mismanagement”. If schools expanded, hired more teachers, or have truly excessive raises (not just CPI or normal pre determined raises) or just local taxes and paid for it with one time funds, then yeah it’s mismanagement. But I fail to see how having a funding crisis this year is worse than a funding crisis 4 years ago, if the funds were truly used to just keep the lights on.

Comment by Perrid Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 5:54 pm