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Health & Fitness

Gov Quinn's Education Cuts Will Hit Homeowners and Students

The education cuts Gov Quinn is proposing will cause our property taxes to soar and damage the quality of our children's education

Governor Pat Quinn is proposing three major changes to education in Illinois that, taken at face value, will weaken local control of our schools, force local school districts to divert money from the classroom, and potentially cause our local
property taxes to explode.

These three proposals are:

1) The elimination of state transportation reimbursement without elimination of state mandates;

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2) Mandate that local school districts pay more  of the state’s portion of contributions to the Teachers Retirement System; and

3) The forced consolidation of local school districts.

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These proposals are destructive and potentially contradict each other.  Currently, the state reimburses local districts for transportation costs created by state mandates.  In the case of District 146, those costs amount to roughly 75% of their transportation costs.  

Governor Quinn proposes eliminating the state’s reimbursement as a cost saving measure for Springfield, without eliminating the costly and sometimes unnecessary state mandates.  This will place additional burdens on the transportation budgets of local districts and the homeowners who fund those budgets.

I am all for the State of Illinois saving money, in an intelligent matter.  Shifting the financial burden on homeowners is not the answer.  The solution is, if
Governor Quinn wants to eliminate the state transportation reimbursement, then he should also eliminate the state mandates that accompanied the reimbursement.

No one knows the transportation needs of local districts better than the districts themselves. Relieving local districts of these expensive, repetitive, and sometimes unnecessary mandates will free up local districts to be more efficient and creative in meeting the transportation needs of our students.  There will be additional
fiscal strain to every district, but eliminating the mandates will allow
districts to find ways to soften the blow.

The second proposal by Governor Quinn that will harm education is his proposal to simply force local school districts to pay a larger percentage of the state’s
obligation to the Teachers Retirement System (TRS).  It was the State of Illinois that set the rules and formulas for funding TRS, and now that the State of Illinois cannotmeet the financial obligations to TRS that they set themselves, they want the homeowners who fund local school districts to pay the state’s obligation.

Salaries and benefits of employees are paid out of the Education Fund, or “Ed Fund” for short, in every district. This is the fund that directly impacts the classroom.  Any additional outside costs to the Ed Fund means fewer dollars for textbooks, technology, programs, and education tools to further our children’s learning development. Again, if the state wants to relieve itself of the responsibility the state assigned itself in regards to TRS, the state needs to reform how TRS is funded before just sticking homeowners with the state’s end of the bill.

This is like asking someone to go with you to a restaurant of their choice, they order over $100 worth of food, and then tell you they only have $25 to pay for it, and stick you with the balance.

The final troubling proposal by Governor Quinn that will destroy education is the forced consolidation of local school districts.  District 146, including myself, have been at the tip of the spear of this issue since Rep. Robert Rita (D-Blue Island)
introduced HB1886 that would consolidate all school districts in Cook County
into one district.

Since then, District 146 hosted a Town Hall meeting on this subject on March 14, 2011, moderated by Yours Truly, and it was attended by 600 people from as far away as Peru, Illinois.  Governor Quinn proposed consolidating Illinois’ 868 elementary and high school districts down to 300.  Governor Quinn further claimed his proposal would save taxpayers $100 million.  After being pressured for specifics, Governor Quinn’s proposed savings would be the elimination of superintendents and their salaries. This is “pie in the sky” accounting.  

There would be just as many students in Governor Quinn’s proposed 300 districts as there are in today’s 868, with just as many administrators, teachers, and support staff.  To further this goal, Governor Quinn established a commission, chaired by Lt. Governor Sheila Simon, to make recommendations to the General Assembly regarding consolidation.  Several weeks ago, members of that commission were quoted in the press as stating Governor Quinn’s forced consolidation proposal would cost as much as $5 billion more than the current format.

Furthermore, consolidation would cause our communities to lose local control of our schools. Currently, most school district boards are populated with non-partisan, concerned and involved parents and community members, not politicians.

Governor Quinn’s new districts will be so large that “would be” candidates would be dependent on the partisan political organizations to get elected.

Consolidation would cause property taxes to explode as these new districts assumed debt and contracts from old districts, state reimbursement would be eliminated and pension costs would be thrusted on these boards.  Your friendly local school board member you see at the grocery store or your child’s baseball game or PTA meeting, who is receptive to suggestions and answering questions, would be replaced by a political operative who would remain distant and unresponsive. There would be no one at the table to represent the homeowners and their children, to balance the needs of a great education, carry out the values of our community, and to insure the next generation of students would have the resources to achieve a world class education.

This year, 2012, is an election year. None of the candidates for the General Assembly from our area, or from either party, have taken a stand on any of these issues that I have detailed, to my knowledge.  If Governor Quinn gets his way on these issues, our property taxes will soar, and worse, the quality of our education
will decline.  

Illinois is losing population and employers, why would we want to accelerate this disturbing trend by creating a poorly educated work force?

Dean Casper has been a member of the District 146 Board of Education
since 2003, serving as president from 2007-2011. District 146 serves portions of Orland Park, Tinley Park, and Oak Forest. Casper was also a volunteer at District 146 since 1993 and a founding member of the Stevenson Local School Council in Chicago from 1989-1993.

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