(Photo courtesy www.ilga.gov)
By Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – On the final day of the fiscal year, Illinois lawmakers are scheduled back in session to try to fund schools for the full school year and government operations through the November elections.
It was a long day Wednesday in Springfield with not much movement but a lot of negotiations. Gov. Bruce Rauner and legislative leaders held hours-long closed-door negotiations on a variety of proposals.
Rep. Mike Zalewski, D-Riverside, said there’s agreement on what needs to happen.
“We all I think agree that K-12 has to be dealt with, human services have to be dealt with, corrections facilities have to be dealt with,”Zalewski said.
Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, said he expects the agreements will include full funding for K-12 and more.
“I think a stopgap spending bill is in the works that would get us through at least the first six months of fiscal year ’17,” Butler said. “I think a bill to fund road projects throughout the state, which is vitally important for our infrastructure, is in the works.”
Rep. Ron Sandack, R-Downers Grove, said one area that could get funded is tuition assistance grants for college students.
“I think the most important one you just put your finger on: MAPs. I don’t think MAP was included in the first stopgap and I think it’s included and I think that’s a good thing,” Sandack said.
He added community colleges and public and private universities use that money to keep kids in school.
Rep. Robert Martwick, D-Norridge, said funding for Chicago Public Schools is important but the puzzle needs to find favor from all around.
“Each piece of the puzzle is going to be very important to every member on this body so the only way we’re ever going to really get to that grand solution, that grand bargain, is if we start looking at the puzzle as a whole,” Martwick said.
Lawmakers are back in session on Thursday with early morning committee hearings and the House session beginning at 9 a.m.
CPS
The Chicago Public Schools would get some financial relief under a state budget compromise taking shape in Springfield.
The Chicago Tribune reports the school funding plan would add about $250 million for school districts with low-income students, with about $100 million of that for Chicago Public Schools, or CPS.
According to legislation filed June 29, Chicago leaders would be allowed to raise property taxes to help pay down CPS’ pension debt. And the state would pick up about $200 million a year of CPS’ pension costs starting next year. Multiple news sources report that the state money is contingent on pension reforms.
CPS’ teacher pension fund is separate from the statewide teacher pension fund.
House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie said this week that it wasn’t fair that Chicagoans had to pay for other schools’ pensions on top of their own.
The school funding plan would account for an entire school year but the stopgap budget would be for six months.
