Politics imperil Illinois school budget in Rauner's proposed budget

Education in Illinois seemed to have taken a good turn with last summer's legislation to change the funding formula to serve all of the state’s students, and especially those from low income, or less advantaged communities. This light at the end of a decades long tunnel, presaged by mistakes, missteps, and misalliances, seemed to be the dawning of a new day, even as Governor Bruce Rauner, signed the bill, passed over his veto, amidst the smiling faces of the schoolchildren that surrounded him.

Originally claiming that the bill first promulgated by State Senator Andy Manar,  Democrat from Bunker Hill, was simply a bailout for Chicago, and in a war of words, it seemed that a new day had dawned when the state assembly bucked up, and said no.

Then the recent turnabout -- perhaps a petulance at having been forced to sign the bill that he hated, now came a regulation that there had to be a change in terms to ensure that all got the same chance, and especially those that were slated to receive monies from a $75 million scholarship that was a weak cover for a voucher, and one that was promoted by Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Chicago archdiocese, whose parochial schools were to benefit greatly.

While the Chicago Teachers Union railed at the obvious duplicity, and the weakening of the public school system, then in his fiscal year 2019 budget proposal Rauner has set those monies to go down the pipeline of underfunded pensions, by suggesting that school districts, not the state, pay for teachers pensions, but with no dedicated funding stream, the schools would be forced to relinquish any gains from last year’s legislation to make the payments.

As the News-Gazette stated: “The key cost-cutting provision in Rauner's budget is a plan to shift pension and group health insurance costs — 25 percent this year, rising to 100 percent in four years — off the state budget and onto individual universities, community colleges and local school districts.”

Democrats did not succumb to Rauner’s arguments when he said, "We need to move pension costs to the people who do the buying, and make them responsible for the paying, too.”

"This is the biggest backdoor property tax increase in Illinois history," said State Treasurer Mike Frerichs, a Champaign Democrat and a former state senator. "He says he is increasing money for education and higher education, but at the same time making them pay far more than they're going to get. I find it galling for him to claim that he is fighting to cut taxes and put more money into education while pushing further burdens on our schools and our property taxpayers."

The plan has its supporters, among them the editors of the Belleville News Democrat who opined, “Rauner is right that school districts should be responsible for their own pension costs. The current system separates responsibility for paying a teacher's salary from paying most of a teacher's pension costs.

That leads to inflated final salaries paid by districts encouraging teachers to retire in their 50s so they can bring in younger teachers and pay them less. Then the state pays the retired teacher an extra decade based on that higher salary plus another 4.4 percent bump if the teacher has two years of unused sick leave.”

Currently, 26 percent of the state budget is spent on group health and pension costs.

Economists, and academics alike, in opposition, have sounded the alarm at the prospect, with the most prominent being Ralph Martire, executive director of the esteemed Center for Budget and Tax Accountability, whose distress can be seen, when he said in an op-ed piece for the State-Journal Register, “. . . he proposes to save the state money by shifting the obligation to pay the “normal costs” — that is, the amount the employer has to pay to cover future benefits being earned by current workers . . . which covers every school district except CPS, to local schools, saving the state $262 million. He then suggests Chicago residents assume 100 percent of the normal cost for the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, saving the state another $228 million. Both proposals require legislative action, which won’t happen.”

“It won’t happen, because lawmakers don’t want to be blamed for forcing an increase in local property taxes on their constituents, which is the inescapable consequence of the governor’s cost-shift proposal. See, while shifting this obligation saves $490 million in state revenue, it doesn’t save taxpayers a nickel. It just compels their local property tax bills to cover the tab. Given that Illinois already is more reliant on property taxes as a revenue source than most other states generally, and is currently the most reliant state in America on property taxes to fund schools specifically, the governor’s proposal to shift these costs to property taxes is both poor policy and poor politics. It won’t — and shouldn’t — happen,” concluded Martire.

Meanwhile Chicago struggles to maintain a system weakened by scandal, in the form of its last two superintendents, Barbara Byrd-Bennett who was convicted of bribery, and the recently departed Forrest Claypool on an ethics violation, that he lied to cover, and proposed closing three schools, in the Englewood neighborhood, an African American stronghold that has been plagued by disinvestment and violence, only to have new CEO Janice Jackson, under pressure, reverse plans, and say that they would be phased in over three years.

As a point person for the now disgraced Claypool, Jackson had to face a barrage of criticism from within and without the system, including gubernatorial candidate, Chris Kennedy who said, that it was part of what he calls Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “strategic gentrification plan,” which has at its core, he says is a plot to force African-Americans from the city, which they have done in droves, creating a new phenomena in urban migration.

Laura Washington, a black columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that, “Chicago has lost more than 177,000 black residents between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census. [And] Cook County’s black population has fallen by more than 50,000 since 2010,” she added.

While there were several shrieks, of outrage, in response, from many quarters,  Kennedy’s claim, considering the historic school closings by Mayor Emanuel, in majority black areas, in 2013, has the ring of truth.

“I believe that black people are being pushed out of Chicago intentionally by a strategy that involves disinvestment in communities being implemented by the city administration, and I believe Rahm Emanuel is the head of the city administration and therefore needs to be held responsible for those outcomes,” he concluded.

Since chaos is not created in a vacuum, failures of this type, might not just be an orphan, standing the age old adage on its head.

With Chicago as the economic engine of the state, the proposal by Rauner, and the actions by Emanuel, also force us to take a look back in time when one of the endangered school, John Hope College Prep High School, in Englewood, was a success by most standards, with a high graduation rate that had administrators saying that they were definitely doing things right and felt no fear.

But policies by then Mayor Richard M. Daley and CPS School CEO Arne Duncan, along with a closing of nearby Englewood Academy, and acceptance of its students, and the subsequent redesignation of Hope as a neighborhood high school brought problems: loss of admission standards, plus violence and disciplinary issues, noted Sarah Karp for local NPR affiliate,WBEZ.

It also brought competition: “Between 2005 and 2015, CPS opened nine high schools within about two miles of Hope. . ..  many families were enticed by the prospect that the schools would offer their children something better.”

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Coupled with population loss, and increasing violence, the degradation of a once fine school, helped to shutter a thriving neighborhood.. It also shows how lawmakers and school officials actions can have a deleterious effect on the disinvestment of black and brown neighborhoods.

In a dollars and cents breakdown, it also means, as Martire says, less money for schools just when they are needed the most, but the $8.8 million backlog of unpaid bills by the state from the recent year budget crisis means there can be no additional money to the schools, with Rauner’s proposed plans.

With all politics being local and with the upcoming March primary it seemed that Rauner, was also trying to claim higher ground when in January, he took an amendatory veto to ensure that the aforementioned $75 million dollar scholarship program, he quibbled over terminology that he feels will delay the program for about three dozen private schools.

According to the Chicago Tribune, “Rauner’s issue centers on language that would require nonpublic schools to be “recognized” by the board of education to participate in the tax program. He says that eligibility should be expanded to schools that are “registered” with the board.

Adding more fuel was, “during the fall veto session, the General Assembly passed a trailer bill (Senate Bill 444) making two technical changes dealing with how Equalized Assessed Valuation (EAV) is calculated in the new school funding formula. The trailer bill advanced so the modeling done by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) for the new formula matched up with the bill that was passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor,” an unprecedented move said Senate Republicans.

Reversing direction to put the funding bill back on track was Manar who said, of a Senate override, that it, “helps to correct a poor governing decision that so far has delayed execution of the new school funding formula by nearly three months. I look forward to the House taking the same course of action so that we can put this sorry situation is behind us and allow the Illinois State Board of Education to move forward with its work. Schools and communities all over the state are anxious for this to be ironed out once and for all.”