Local school officials’ emotions are mixed on Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed state budget, which dedicated more money for education.
During Rauner’s first budget address Feb. 18, he proposed to allocate $300 million towards kindergarten, elementary and high schools in the state and $25 million toward early education.
River Grove School Superintendent Glenn Grieshaber said the additional funding for preschools is a great thing, but hopes their district gets enough money to deal with not just education, but to ad more space for education.
“We now have four kindergarten classes and four first-grade classes,” he said. “We have a new surge of young children. We’re full to the gills.”
Grieshaber said he’d take a wait and see approach until the money is in the school district’s bank.
“I hear him promising to support preschool, but I don’t see him promising more money,” he said.
He says school districts seem to be taking on more expenses, but the amount of revenue remains the same.
Still, if Rauner’s proposals come through in the final budget, the district wouldn’t say no to the money.
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“We’ll take anything we can get at this place,” he said.
Tom Janateas, chief financial officer at Leyden District 212, said he thinks this budget is more about setting a tone.
“There’s not much to comment on because it’s so vague,” Janateas said. “Once we get specific numbers and line items, we’ll have more discussions and see what the impact to us is.”
Having said that, Janateas doesn’t anticipate much money for the district.
“A good share of the $300 million, half of it or so, will go to Chicago Public Schools,” Janateas expects. “The rest goes to around 900 school districts in Illinois. Divide it up and it’s $166,000 or so.”