Under a proposed change to state funding for schools, most districts in the Elgin area would come out ahead. But Burlington Central District 301, which covers Elgin’s far west side, would come up short. And officials in Huntley District 158 say it could cut or boost aid, depending on how much Illinois allocates for schools statewide.
District 301 Superintendent Todd Stirn criticized the plan outlined in Senate Bill 1, saying he doesn’t see how cutting state aid to the Central schools could be considered “more fair” when local property taxpayers already provide 88.9 percent of that district’s income.
“The bill is still pitting one school district against another” when the Illinois constitution calls for the state itself to provide the majority of all schools’ funding, Stirn said.
Proposed by downstate senator Andy Manar and cosponsored by Elgin Sen. Michael Noland, Senate Bill 1 would adjust the state aid formula so districts that have high levels of poverty, a low property tax base, high busing costs, lots of students in bilingual classes and high numbers of special-education students would get more state money. Districts that faced fewer of those challenges would get less state money.
The bill is now in the Senate Executive Committee. Noland said he expects it will come up for a vote during this legislative session, which ends May 31.
The Illinois State Board of Education this week released estimates of how much the proposed changes would have altered the flow of money from Springfield to each school district in the state if Senate Bill 1 had been in effect last fiscal year.
Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman Mary Fergus said the board did not try to estimate the impact based on this fiscal year’s aid and student bodies because final figures are not yet available for 2014-2015.
The Board made two estimates for the impact if the changes had been in effect in 2013-2014. One estimate assumes the legislature had allocated an additional $92 million in school funding for “adequacy grants” to ease the pain of large cuts to some districts. The other scenario assumes the legislature had allocated $500 million more for school aid, as some legislators have proposed. Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed state budget calls for an added $300 million in total state aid, but the Illinois State Board of Education did not analyze the impact of that.
Elgin School District U46 would have reaped the biggest benefit of any school district outside Chicago — $25.4 million more in state aid under the low-spending scenario and $36.3 million more under the high-spending one. By comparison, it actually received $106.4 million in state aid in 2013-2014.
“The time to provide fair and equitable funding for Illinois schools is overdue, especially in an era of proration of state education dollars,” said District U46, CEO Tony Sanders.
Unit District 300, serving the Algonquin-Dundee-Hampshire-Pingree Grove area, also would have received more under the proposed formula — from $2.2 million to $7 million more. It actually received $24.6 million.
But Central District 301 would have seen its aid cut by $1.9 million under the low-state-spending formula and by $1.1 million under the high-spending one. It actually received $3.4 million, so a $1.9 million cut would have taken away more than half its state aid.
Stirn said that if the Central schools lose $1.1 to $1.7 million out of their operating budget of $44.7 million, “to believe that we could provide the same quality of education is not realistic.”
Huntley District 158 would have gotten $1.7 million less under the low-spending formula but would have gotten $355,000 more under the high-spending formula. The district actually received $18.7 million.
Senate Bill 1 is similar in thrust to last year’s Senate Bill 16, but seeks to soften the impact on richer districts by limiting state-aid reductions to no more than $1,000 per student; by using that $92 million in new “adequacy grant” money to increase aid to districts that would see losses even though their operating expenditures per pupil are comparatively low and their tax rate is comparatively high; and by phasing in the gains and losses over three years.
“I’ve fought hard to increase District U46’s and District 300’s share of state funding and to make the aid formula more equitable,” Noland said. “Every state official who represents these districts should be supporting this bill.”
However, Noland said, Senate Bill 1 addresses the fairness issue “without addressing the question of adequacy” of state funding. So, he said, he also is sponsoring Senate Bill 1260. That would increase the amount of money available to the state by returning the income tax rate to 5 percent and applying the sales tax to service providers. Noland said that bill also would give property tax relief to real estate owners, without cutting property-tax income to schools, by allowing people to get a 10-cent credit on their state income tax for every dollar they pay in local property taxes. Illinoisans now get a 5-cent credit.
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State Rep. Anna Moeller, (D-Elgin) said that whether it is realistic for the state to inject an added $500 million or even $92 million may become clearer after talks by a bipartisan task force of legislators to discuss state funding. “I support the concept” of the bill, she said, “but the devil is in the details.”
In District 300, Superintendent Fred Heid said he hadn’t seen the ISBE figures yet but “there are several lingering concerns, beginning with that $42 million or $500 million in extra revenue that the figures presume.
“Where will this revenue come from?” Heid asked. “What happens to these calculations if the revenue isn’t found? … Someone needs to be sincere and show the impact if additional revenue isn’t found.”
“The simple truth is the state needs to be sincere in its commitment to fully fund education,” Heid said. “The state needs to address the revenue issue and stop using a system that essentially places the burden at the local level.”
See the ISBE estimates at: http://www.isbe.net/budget/html/ed-funding.htm