By Carie Kuehn
NORMAL – In the Unit Five School Board meeting on Wednesday, Superintendent Mark Daniel stressed that the state needs to fix education funding as a whole, even after passing a budget,
“The $6,119 considered full funding under general state aid has not been increased since 2010,” said Daniel. “While the cost of educating our students has been increasing.”
The temporary budget passed in Springfield before the beginning of the new fiscal year will allow schools in Illinois to open their doors, but does not guarantee anything more permanent down the road. Daniel says the impact of the stop-gap budget was not as large as many would expect.
“As our Equalized Assessed Value increases, the amount of general state aid decreases,” says Daniel. “for Unit 5, as EAV increases, the decrease in general state aid dollars is actually larger than the additional tax dollars collected in the educational fund.”
At Wednesday’s meeting, the board also introduced new personnel, went over projections for the upcoming school year, and recognized the state-runner up Normal Community West softball team.
Carie Kuehn can be reached at carie.kuehn@cumulus.com.
