Here's the latest from the Daily Herald:
Local lawmakers warn of deep school cuts
www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=362660&src=2SPRINGFIELD - State lawmakers who help oversee school funding discussions at the Capitol say local districts should plan for the worst as education funding is likely to lose its sacred cow status with the state trying to erase a nearly $13 billion budget deficit.
"I think it will be nigh unto a miracle if they get flat funding, because the money's just not there. I think everything in the state is going to have to be cut," said state Rep. Suzie Bassi, a Palatine Republican who serves as the GOP spokeswoman on a key House school finance committee.
The Illinois State Board of Education proposed a $14.7 billion budget for next fiscal year, a figure that accounts for state and federal funding to local districts and is the same amount as the current year.
What's not included is nearly $1 billion in federal stimulus money used to prop up the current state school budget that won't be coming back, creating a massive funding hole before the state's sinking economy is even entered into the equation.A preliminary budget outline presented last week by
Gov. Pat Quinn estimated that state funding for Illinois schools could be reduced by about $1.4 billion next year, an amount that doesn't include the lost federal stimulus cash.
"We can't keep asking the federal government to bail us out on education," said state Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, an Aurora Democrat, who runs the House committee in charge of education budgeting.
Exactly how Quinn plans to cut the education budget won't be known until his budget presentation March 10. His budget director, a former downstate school board member, told reporters
the education cuts will be painful and cover general state aid as well as grants and funding school districts get to reimburse them for transportation, special education and other required programs.Chapa LaVia expects additional teacher and administrator layoffs across Illinois next month, when districts are required to give advance notice to faculty who will be let go next year.
Local schools have already been slashing.
Elgin Area School District U-46 is facing a $50 million deficit. District officials are talking about class-size increases, firing hundreds of teachers, cutting employee pay and increasing employees' benefit contributions.
The Maine Township High School District 207 school board last month approved cutting 75 largely nontenured, certified teachers by school year end to save $5 million. And Gurnee's Woodland Elementary District 50 cut 16 teachers as it struggles with a local deficit for next year projected at about $3.5 million.
Like other districts, Indian Prairie School District 204, which serves Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield, will wait to renew the employment contracts of almost 700 nontenured teachers and administrators, who will be in limbo about whether they'll resume their jobs next fall.
Indian Prairie Unit District 204 Superintendent Kathy Birkett said cutbacks need to extend beyond personnel.
"We will need to make additional reductions beyond staffing in order to make up for the state's shortfall," Birkett said in a letter to district parents.
Chapa LaVia said schools, unaccustomed to being on the state chopping block, might question the seriousness of the education funding shortfall, but cautions the deficits are real and schools are not likely to be spared.
"Our children are in a school building burning and there are no first responders," Chapa LaVia said. "We're talking larger classrooms, less extra curricular all throughout, we're talking real sacrifices made at these districts - and citizens should be upset."
Bassi said cutting programs, reducing staff or closing buildings all are possible reactions to decreased state funding.
"They're going to have to. Unless they can figure out a way to manufacture money, they will have to look at all of those options, and hopefully do the best they can for the majority of the kids," said Bassi.
Sen. Dan Cronin of Elmhurst is the Republican spokesman for the Senate Education Committee.
He said school funding and health care are two of the biggest spending lines in the state budget.
Illinois schools already depend more on local funding through property taxes than all but one state in the nation, with about
60 percent of Illinois schools' funding coming from local property taxes. The figure is even higher in many suburbs because of the vast local property wealth compared to other parts of the state.
Although property taxes may not be an ideal funding source, it's a better option than the state budget, Cronin said.
"Although property taxes are a regressive tax and they're painful for a lot of people, at least they're not depending on Springfield to fund them because Springfield is a worse alternative," he said.
Lawmakers have proposed ending unfunded state mandates and other cost savings, but Chapa LaVia says such measures might relieve only a fraction of the education funding deficit.
"There's no way we can cut ourselves out of this budget hole," she said.
Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman Mary Fergus said
things would have been worse the last couple years if not for the federal stimulus cash. That money prevented numerous teacher layoffs."It was a lifeline for us," Fergus said.
Even as Quinn's budget office prepares education budget cuts, the governor has expressed his reluctance to cut school funding, saying jobs follow "brain power." The next state budget takes effect July 1.