State School Panel Backs Huntley Funding Fix Idea (IL)

December 1, 2010

The Illinois Association of School Boards wants the Illinois General Assembly to tell its member school boards how much money they can expect from the state. And it wants legislators to tell those boards before they set their budgets for the next school year.

The proposal, which passed unanimously and without debate, was one of six resolutions that more than 315 Illinois school districts considered at the IASB’s annual delegate assembly recently in Chicago.

It now will become part of the IASB’s position statements, which are used by school lobbyists in their legislative agenda, according to the IASB.

The proposal was sponsored by Huntley Consolidated School District 158. It also was supported at a school board meeting by the Elgin School District U46 Board of Education, which got its own funding fix when Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto of Illinois Senate Bill 2499 was overturned.

“Even though SB2499 passed, there are still other districts — namely Huntley — that continue to have issues because of being in multiple tax-capped” counties, U46 spokesman Tony Sanders said.

“We will continue to work with IASB with any legislation they develop that addresses funding.”

School leaders have been forced to make decisions on district budgets without any reliable guidance on the level of state funding, according to a written statement from the IASB. With their approval of the Huntley proposal, school board members said they want to know how much funding is available by March 31 each year, rather than late May, the statement said.

Some school districts span multiple counties, which collect taxes at different times. For some multi-county districts, such as U46, the Illinois State Board of Education has been forced to estimate how much tax money they will receive from some of their counties, potentially costing them millions of dollars.

SB2499 fixed that for U46, making sure the state board uses the actual data from the county that will most benefit a school district for districts that encompass multiple counties. For the Elgin-based district, that will be from Cook County.

District 158, which serves students in portions of Kane and McHenry counties, has proposed legislation to correct the estimated amounts the state uses after those actual numbers are reported. IASB delegates last weekend also voted on a resolution to end unfair allotment practices regarding general state aid for certain multi-county districts.

Officials from District 158 could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Of the four other proposals IASB delegates voted on, all but one passed. Those included a resolution to maintain local school district control over student academic placement; resolutions to modify the law governing state oversight panels to preserve the bonding authority of school boards; and to modify recent changes to the Freedom of Information Act.

Delegates narrowly rejected another budget-related resolution, sponsored by Naperville’s Indian Prairie Community Unit School District 204, that called for legislation to allow school districts to “set off” their income tax payments with the amounts owed those districts by the state. Opponents noted that was employees’ money, not the districts’ — and that less income tax revenue might mean even less funding for schools, according to the IASB.