As Gov. Jim Edgar took to the stump Wednesday in search of the grass-roots support to prod lawmakers into backing higher state taxes for schools, a scathing state audit questioned how accountable the State Board of Education has been for the dollars it receives.
“I need your help,” Edgar told a gathering of administrators, teachers and parents in the outdated library of the 101-year-old Lincoln Elementary School in Belvidere, near Rockford.
“We need legislators to understand that they need to act. We need your help in making sure every child in this state has a chance at an equal education. Let them know we want something meaningful this year–it may not be perfect, but it needs to be done. Let them know you’ll stand with them to see that it gets done,” Edgar said.
Edgar also campaigned with the same message at schools in Downstate Colchester and in Peoria County, where school districts are struggling with high property taxes and per-pupil spending that is below the minimum $4,225 level Edgar seeks.
While reiterating his support for a state income tax increase in return for property tax relief, Edgar emphasized a willingness to compromise by saying, “The bottom line is what you can pass. I want to pass something.”
But at this point, Republican leaders remain unconvinced that a broad income tax hike is the solution–or that schools deserve any additional funding.
Such skepticism was fueled Wednesday by a report released in Springfield by Auditor General William Holland that raised serious questions about the accountability of the State Board of Education.
Holland said his audit reflected “a breakdown in the fundamental principle of administration,” including inadequate control over employees and contracts, and expenses for travel, lodging and other activities of state Schools Supt. Joseph Spagnolo.
Republicans have maintained that accountability for education dollars is as important as the issue of whether more money should be pumped into schools. And although the state board’s audit does not directly reflect actions at the local school level, the audit served as a political distraction and a convenient metaphor for those skittish about changes in school funding.
Some said the audit raised the question of how local school districts could be held accountable when the agency overseeing them had serious problems with accountability.
But Edgar aides said they believed that accountability within the state school board and overall accountability for education dollars were separate issues, and they expressed doubt that the audit would damage Edgar’s school-funding push.
“The funding reform issue is about money going to schools and to property-tax relief. What we’re talking about here with the board of education is how well or not they did in their bookkeeping and how well they do in improving that situation,” Edgar spokesman Thomas Hardy said.
GOP Senate President James “Pate” Philip of Wood Dale called the audit “a pretty condemning report” and “the worst audit I’ve ever seen.”
He also attacked the performance of Spagnolo. “How could you be pleased?” Philip said. “He certainly has had a lot of problems in that agency.”
Nevertheless, Philip also indicated that four Edgar appointees to the state’s new nine-member streamlined state school board, who were holdovers from the previous board, likely would gain Senate confirmation next week. Their confirmation had been delayed pending release of Holland’s audit.
Louis Mervis of Danville, whom Edgar named to be chairman of the new board, acknowledged the audit does little to advance the case that new state dollars are needed for schools.
“I’d be a fool to say that it’s helping us. But I think today is an important day because we’re going to get it behind us. We’re going to take care of the problem,” Mervis said.
He pledged quick and decisive reforms and said controls would be placed over future spending. Spagnolo, meanwhile, vowed to stay on the job. He said anyone looking to use the audit to block education-finance reform statewide is merely seeking an excuse for inaction.
“The broader issue of school accountability and school funding–that’s a wholly different issue, and I would say that anybody that would use this (audit) as an excuse not to do that (reform) is simply wrong-headed,” Spagnolo said.
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Among the specific items cited by Holland was record-keeping so sloppy that auditors had “significant uncertainty” over how $24 million in federal funding was spent and whether some of it should be returned to Washington.
The audit also said the board had inadequate documentation to determine what consultants to the board did for their money. It criticized the board for hitting up its contractual vendors to supply goodies for the state board’s employee picnic last summer.
In his fly-around, Edgar pounded on the disparity between wealthy and low-income school districts and cautioned Chicago-area suburbanites against dismissing poor rural districts.
“People in the wealthier parts of the state . . . say `Why should I care, if I’m sitting in the suburbs, why should I care about what happens in some rural school in southern Illinois?’ ” Edgar said. “I say, `You may not care about the school, but you’re going to have to pay if they fail because these kids can’t compete, if they can’t get a job and end up on welfare . . . or in the state prison.’ “
Edgar continued to refuse to embrace any specific plan to accomplish increases of up to $400 million in state funding for schools and $1.5 billion in relief for real-estate taxpayers, saying he wants to build consensus with lawmakers.
“It doesn’t do any good to outline the most perfect plan that doesn’t pass,” Edgar said.
Edgar said Wednesday that he wants at least $1 billion in real estate tax relief in the first year of the plan and would be willing to phase in the remaining $500 million over a period of up to three years to guarantee all districts were financed at the $4,225 per-pupil spending level recommended by a blue ribbon committee last year.
At Colchester Junior-Senior High School near Macomb, students are using an English literature textbook from 1968, computers are fitted with outdated software programs, the science laboratory is archaic, and kids can take the single foreign language class only for up to two years.
“It’s obvious–communities like this, they don’t have all the financial resources other schools have,” Edgar said.