School districts say proposed state aid hikes not enough

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Updated: March 28, 2012 9:49PM

The Illinois State Board of Education is recommending a $265.2 million, or 3.9 percent, increase in state education funding.

It comes ahead of Gov. Pat Quinn’s State of the State budget address scheduled for Wednesday.

And it’s still about $426 million less than the funding Illinois schools received from the state in 2009. Education funding has been reduced by about $650 million since that time, according to a written statement from the ISBE.

“On behalf of the board, I urge legislators to seriously consider increasing education funding for the first time in more than three years,” State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch said in that statement.

“Our proposed budget reflects a very modest increase that would support local schools and ongoing reform efforts. We are implementing some of the more meaningful education reform measures in the history of our state, and nation, but we need lawmaker support to turn many of these initiatives into reality.”

Those reforms include aligning all Illinois schools to the Common Core Standards, and spending $2 million training educators to implement those standards.

The ISBE has recommended increasing General State Aid by $201.3 million. It also has recommended a $19.9 million increase for early childhood education (a 6.1 percent increase), a $7 million increase to help districts meet the needs of the growing bilingual population and $1 million toward support and resources for the growing population of homeless students in Illinois schools.

“Obviously, the bilingual, the homeless — all of that would be great. But the first thing we’d like them to do is pay their current bills,” said Cheryl Crates, chief financial officer in Community Unit School District 300.

Dale Burnidge, director of financial operations in Elgin School District U46, agreed.

“Those would be good areas for our district. There’s definitely a need in those areas,” he said.

But neither school district is factoring any increases into its new budgets.

The state just started making categorical payments to U46 for the current 2011-12 school year last week, Burnidge said. It had been $18 million behind in payments before the district received payments for transportation and special education; that puts it now $11.4 million behind.

“Just our piece is huge, and we’re just one district,” he said.

Crates said the Carpentersville-area school district hasn’t seen any payments for the current school year, putting the state more than $10 million behind in what it owes District 300.

If Illinois does increase — and pay — its education funding, the chief financial officer said that would be “wonderful.” District 300’s budget already is slightly in the red, she said.

But, Crates said, “It’s just hard to get exited about something (that’s) sort of like someone saying, ‘I know you haven’t gotten a paycheck in six months, but next year we’ll give you a raise.’

“Just give me my money now.”