Showdown over school funding continues in Springfield

Using blunt headlines such as “Enough” and “Do Your Job”, about a dozen IL newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page opinion pieces demanding that the state’s political leaders end the year-old budget stalemate.

Steve Brown, spokesman for Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, reported “good progress” on the stopgap measure because Democrats insisted on “the improvement in what was a meager amount for higher education”. “It’s not fair to suburban taxpayers who are getting killed with property taxes to then have to bail out a CPS system that has been so irresponsible with money for years”, Murphy said.

You might as well call it a “stop and gasp” budget.

IL law allows people to petition the state to add health conditions to the eligible list, but Rauner’s administration has rejected all new conditions despite the advice of an expert panel that reviewed available medical evidence. “That is the real tragedy.” .

The plan would fund K-12 for the full year with a funding increase of $240 million. About three dozen of Illinois’ roughly 800 school districts receive a larger percentage increase. Senate Democrats plan to put forward an education funding plan this week that increases funding by $750 million, according to the Associated Press. Looking on is City of Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico.

St. Sen. Koehler says there’s disagreement among leaders over school funding levels.

Republican House and Senate leaders were also in the meeting that included Madigan, the Republican governor, and the Democratic president of the Senate, John Cullerton. The proposal would not include a major overhaul of the school funding formula.

It’s even more incredible that our state lawmakers haven’t been working round-the-clock to resolve their differences to come up with a long-term solution. Their proposal boosts general state aid funding by $760 million, including a so-called equity grant that would provide more aid to schools that have more low-income students.

Rauner claimed lawmakers were holding out on voting on reforms until after November’s general election.

What’s not known is whether or not these funding plans have the votes. But if lawmakers and the governor fail to approve a new education budget soon, schools will be at risk of closing or will have to use rainy day funds to open.

Some social service agencies have received money this year because of the court orders against the state. Meanwhile, $33.2 billion would be earmarked for lottery prizes, debt payments and to keep road construction projects operating.

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner made his latest push today to have a spending plan in place by July 1st. We have seen elected representatives apparently unable to stand up to Madigan, Cullerton and Rauner to demand a resolution to the crisis. That’s more cooperation than we are seeing in Springfield on the budget issue.