McHenry County Blog

That comment by State Rep. Mike Tryon (R-Crystal Lake) pretty much summed up the District 300 Legislative Committee meeting at Jacobs High School Tuesday night.

State Reps. Mike Tryon and Keith Farnham, plus State Senator Karen McConnaughay await questions at the District 300 Legislative Committee meeting.

Tryon succinctly summarized the state’s financial situation at the end of the meeting in answer to a compound question, part of which was whethe3r the two local legislators present–Tryon and State Senator Karen McConnaughay–favored prorating State Aid to Education payments.

Elaine Neckritz

Traveling from her North Shore district to discuss pension reform, Democrat State Rep. Elaine Nekritz explained that State Aid to Education has been prorated at 85% of what the formula dictated.

Tryon pointed out that with a 1.2% increase in the state economy, State Aid payments could not keep up with teacher salary increases of 2-2.5%.

“It won’t work,” he said.

Several times the trade-off on pension responsibility from state taxpayers to local property taxpayers was advanced by low taxed Chicago politicians was discussed.

To put the disparity of real estate tax burdens in perspective, Tryon told of House Speaker Mike Madigan’s tax bill of $4,900 on his $341,000 home in Chicago.

A tax bill in Crystal Lake on a $341,000 home would be $12,000, Tryon pointed out.

“We can’t afford anymore money on our property tax.”

There was a pretty good crowd of students, teachers, staff and residents at the Legislative Committee meeting.

Tryon did say he was amenable to talking about a trade-off, if the money saved was put into the State Aid Formula for the districts where the shift occurred, if I understood what he said.

Before he left for another engagement, commenting on the state’s fiscal condition, State Rep. Keith Farnham (D-Elgin) said, “I really don’t believe we can totally cut our way out of this.”

Freshman State Senator McConnaughay added, “There are more needs than there are available dollars.”

She added, “If the state can’t pay its bills, there’s no way to avoid…difficult choices without shared pain on the part of all.”

The push is on to increase State Aid to Education.

Lost among the lobbying is what is happening to enrollment in public schools.

So, as a public service, McHenry County Blog publishes the state wide figures from 1991-92 through 2010-11:

This year before last enrollment was down about 31,000 students or just under 1.5%.

While total enrollment the beginning of the school year in 2010 was 2,074,806, in September of 2011 it was up to 2,098,145, up 23,339 or 1.1%.

The irony in this part of his interview with Governor Pat Quinn is that Neil Steinberg and maybe even the Governor do not know the pension problem is directly attributable to stealing money allocted to pensions in years past to increase State Aid to Education.

Neil Steinberg adds to the pressure to address the public pension mess Monday morning in a column featuring an interview with Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.

There is one part that I found interesting, accurate as far as it goes, but missing the main point.

“The folks who put us in this mess are from both parties,” Quinn said.

He’s got that right.

“Every governor and every session of the legislature, the choice at the end of the year came down to: ‘Do we pay this pensions thing or spend a little bit more money on other things?”

Correct again.

“They always picked now over requiring pension payments. So it got worse and worse.”

The Governor again speaks truth.

But not the whole truth.

Each year I remember the Governor’s budget would allocate so much for education.

It would be broken down into State Aid to Education, university subsidies and pension payments for those employed in higher and lower education.

Each year, the teachers unions–I’m talking the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers–would come in and argue that the pension money would be better spent “NOW,” to put it in the Governor’s word, on State Aid to Education.

Tomorrow would take care of itself was the implicit message.

Since those still employed as teachers or professors or support personnel were so much more influential than the retired folks, the money was allocated by General Assembly after General Assembly for current expenditures, rather than future pension payments.

Hard to criticize the political sense of the judgment at the time, because most of the representatives and senators voting for the budgets wouldn’t be around to pay the piper, so to speak.

But doing so had more than political advantages for incumbent legislators running for re-election.

Sending extra money to local schools had the unintended effect of increasing the pension burden on state taxpayers.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, higher teacher salaries meant higher teacher pensions.

Having said pointed that out, I remember thinking time and time again that I might be around to have to figure out how to pay for extravagant programs.

That was before I voted, “No.”

Maybe someone can find someone who voted against more budgets than I over the 16 years I served in the General Assembly, but I doubt it.

At this point, it would be appropriate to remind readers that I receive a legislative pension, but one that was not hopped up by having a post-GA job at a higher salary than I received as a state representative. Because of the 3% annual so-called “cost of living” increase–which is a flat rate not based on inflation–my pension is substantially higher than my final salary in the Illinois House of Representatives in 2000.

I remember voting for only two pension bills. One was in the second year of my first term that affected the General Assembly pension system. I remember asking the legendary C.L. McCormick from Vienna what it was all about. He told me not to worry about it and I voted in favor.

That was the favorable last pension vote I remember until a McHenry County Judge called me in the 1990′s about supporting a bill that would put his bifurcated judicial service on an equal footing with those who had only served as a judge. He had been an Associate Judge after serving as Assistant State’s Attorney, gone into private practice and returned to the bench to finish his career.

The money lost at casinos in Illinois has increase over 20%, but money going to State Aid to Education is up only 2.1%.

One reason is that Illinois has a graduated income tax based on calendar years.

Because Des Plaines opened in July, it’s taxable income is based on six months revenue.

The other Chicago area casinos took huge hits on their gambling revenue, so their tax rates went down.

As you can see, the Des Plaines casino took money from all other Chicagoland casinos. Table: Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.

Besides that, the General Assembly sucked money off the top from what otherwise could have gone to education:

• 15% for the Horse Racing Equity Fund
• 2% as a subsidy to Cook County government for law enforcement
• 2% to Chicago State University (thank then-Senate President Emil Jones for that atrocity)

Gambling losses went up 33% in the first nine months of Fiscal Year 2012, according to the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.

But the four exiting casinos saw losers bet 12% less.  Elgin, the closest to Des Plaines, had betters lose 19% less.  That amounted to $41 million.

Indiana casinos saw betters lose 4% less or almost $40 million.

Undoubtedly because of the closeness of Des Plaines to Chicago, overall casino gambling loses were up 10.7%.

New statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Survey of Local Government Finances,” page 11, about school spending in 2008-9 has been published.  I have published the US averages, plus the figures down to the 20th ranking state ranked on total spending, which is Indiana.

Illinois is number 18, in elementary and secondary revenue, while Wisconsin is 19th.

There is no indication on the page of what the $12,457 means.  I assume it is per pupil data, but there is nothing on the page that verifies that.

Illinois is 12th in money from Federal sources at $1,581.

It is 48th out of the 50 states in state support with $3,722 coming in State Aid to Education.

Tenth is the ranking of this state for money from local sources, that is, property taxes.  The  figure is $7,154.  (In future years, some of the local money will be from locally-approved sales taxes.)

The table shows $10,835 under the heading of “Total Elementary-Secondary Revenue.”

Spending figures are also given.

$6,330 is Illinois total, ranking 20th.  Again, I am assuming this is for each student.  The national average is $6,369.

For salaries, Illinois ranks 20th at $4,338.  For benefits, we are 21st at $1,421.

For General Administration, Illinois is 2d with $453 being spent for every child.  I supposed this includes the State Board of Education and the offices of the elected Regional Superintendents of Schools.

For school administration, Illinois ranks below average at $447 per pupil.  This seems to belie

The third floor is where the legislature meets. To the rigth in this photo is the House Chamber, to the left the press room.

We are in this mess because over the years Governors have proposed X amount of dollars for education.

Usually a couple of hundred million dollars.

When the discussions of how to cut up that amount took place, current salaries won over future pensions.

That’s what the Illinois Education Association lobbyists said they wanted.

If it made that powerful group with its big Political Action Committee happy, legislators were happy.

This was a win-win for the teachers’ unions.

They knew the state constitution would require the General Assembly to come up with the pension money.

And, with the larger share going to State Aid to Education that originally planned, not only would their members salaries be higher, but their pensions would increase.

Governor Pat Quinn addressing the Illinois General Assembly on his budget.

One of the cuts made by Governor Pat Quinn was $15.7 million for a so-called “Hold Harmless” provision in the State Aid to Education formula.

He get my praise because the program resulted in giving money to school districts to subsidize empty classroom seats.

If a school district can’t get less money than the year before, then when student population declines, it continues to get the same amount of money that it got before.

This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Yes, I have heard the arguments, first from officials at Northern Illinois University in the late 1970′s when enrollment was dropping.

“We still have the same number of classrooms and other fixed costs,” they argued. “That’s why we need the same amount of money.”

When enrollment increased, I pointed out, they asked for more money. After all, there were more students to educate.

But, the educators seemed oblivious to the possibility that costs would not increase for a while. After all, one could put more students into the same classrooms.  There was not immediate increase in fixed costs and not much in variable costs.

The argument led to the “Hold Harmless” approach.

It, of course, allowed tough choices to be delayed.

Complete nonsense, in my opinion, as I argued on the House floor when Democrat Julie Curry of Decatur passed the bill with suburban votes.

Maybe you’ll read it here first. Increases in money to local school districts have been decided.

The information is online at the State Board of Education’s web site.

Begin the gnashing of teeth.

Or will it be sighs of relief?

Some school superintendents preferred to pretend the $160 increase per student was going to be zero.

Result?

Outlook “bleak.”

When you pretend it’s zero then you can publicly say the outlook is “bleak.”

I was at a meeting last week where the special ed parents weren’t buying into Huntley Supt. John Burkey’s desire to appropriate $800,000 of IDEA (special ed) federal stimulus funds to balance his proposed budget.

By my quick math, the foundation level increase is more than $1.25 million for Huntley School District 158.

This is a far cry from the “zero” that board members approved in the district’s preliminary budget.

And, this is not the first time a school district has predicated actions on no increase in state aid to education.

Remember the last District 300 referendum?

Now, the cat’s out of the bag.

The foundation level increase is $160 per student.

Unrealistic projections are just that.

There is nothing “fiscally conservative” about being purposely unrealistic.

It is no surprised when school boards threaten to kill sports and extracurricular activities if their voters don’t pass tax rate hikes.

If it less common for school officials to be proven to have enough money to avoid doing that before the election.

That happened at the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Rotary Club meeting a little over a year ago when Huntley School Board Member Larry Snow pointed out and District 300 Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Crates admitted that she had underestimated State Aid to Education. The same admission was made at a later school board meeting.

The amount?

More than enough to save sports and extracurricular activities.

The Northwest Herald even ran a chart on it front page before the referendum.

Nevertheless, the District 300 tax hike committee—Advance 300–and the district continued the ruse that sports and extra curricular activities would disappear, if the referendum did not pass.

The same strategy was used in Boone County’s biggest school district, Belvidere.

Saturday, Kevin Haas wrote a story for the Rockford Register-Star about how Belvidere School Superintendent Don Scholmann had—ready for this—found enough money to keep sports and extracurricular activities intact for the next two years.

Want to guess where he is finding the money?

Go on. Guess.

Sounding a lot like President Richard M. Nixon when he ran for president the second time, Superintendent Schlomann has a secret plan.

He’ll announce it Monday at the school board meeting.

But, it’s going to postpone the end of sports and extracurricular activities for two years.

And, surprise, surprise, it will depend on how much state aid to education shows up after this legislative session.

Or, maybe it will be a combination of that and drawing down the reserves that Rockford reporter Jeff Jolkey has found.

Catch this sentence:

Without a tax increase and without a budget cut, the district could run its new high school until 2012.

Too bad opponents of the Belvidere tax rate hike didn’t ask Larry Snow to take a look at the books and offer his analysis.

The truth about whether there would be enough money for extracurricular activities and sports might have been knowable before the referendum.

The story says the district only estimated $150 more per student but what’s being discussed is more than that.

District 300 estimated less than that for referendum propaganda purposes–$100.

And here’s the Belvidere superintendent’s explanation to reporter Kevin Haas:

If the Board of Education would have knowledge of what the state aid was going to be, they may not have run a referendum. But at the same time we still don’t know what that state aid is going to be. And we won’t know until July.

Excuse me, if I smell something I wouldn’t keep in the house.

The Rockford paper endorsed the referendum.

This was part of the editorial:

If it fails, sports and extracurriculars will go, at least for a year. Simple.

And here’s part of what one person wrote after reading that, low and behold, sports and extracurriculars might not die:

… the school system lies….I can tell you, Belvidere will never get another vote out of me, ever….

And, here’s another comment from an “No” voter:

Now their bluff has been called, and they have been shown up. So now Belvidere most likely will get to keep sports, and the new high school will be staffed, WITHOUT a tax increase.

They simply sat down, decided that they didn’t want to take pay cuts, and used the kids as pawns. Now the kids should be upset with the BOE for using them in their little game, instead of the voters that voted NO.

= = = = =
The homemade square yellow sign saying “BUCS BOOSTER” in a half circle on the top and “SUPPORT ATHLETICS” in a half circle on the bottom with “VOTE YES” in the middle was in front of a home with a “NO CHEMTOOL” sign in Garden Prairie.

The other pictures of signs were taken last fall before the November referendum. I didn’t see any of them this time around, but I’ll bet some were re-cycled.

Click on the text of the referendum question and see if you can understand it.

It is no surprised when school boards threaten to kill sports and extracurricular activities if their voters don’t pass tax rate hikes.

If it less common for school officials to be proven to have enough money to avoid doing that before the election.

That happened at the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Rotary Club meeting a little over a year ago when Huntley School Board Member Larry Snow pointed out and District 300 Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Crates admitted that she had underestimated State Aid to Education. The same admission was made at a later school board meeting.

The amount?

More than enough to save sports and extracurricular activities.

The Northwest Herald even ran a chart on it front page before the referendum.

Nevertheless, the District 300 tax hike committee—Advance 300–and the district continued the ruse that sports and extra curricular activities would disappear, if the referendum did not pass.

The same strategy was used in Boone County’s biggest school district, Belvidere.

Saturday, Kevin Haas wrote a story for the Rockford Register-Star about how Belvidere School Superintendent Don Scholmann had—ready for this—found enough money to keep sports and extracurricular activities intact for the next two years.

Want to guess where he is finding the money?

Go on. Guess.

Sounding a lot like President Richard M. Nixon when he ran for president the second time, Superintendent Schlomann has a secret plan.

He’ll announce it Monday at the school board meeting.

But, it’s going to postpone the end of sports and extracurricular activities for two years.

And, surprise, surprise, it will depend on how much state aid to education shows up after this legislative session.

Or, maybe it will be a combination of that and drawing down the reserves that Rockford reporter Jeff Jolkey has found.

Catch this sentence:

Without a tax increase and without a budget cut, the district could run its new high school until 2012.

Too bad opponents of the Belvidere tax rate hike didn’t ask Larry Snow to take a look at the books and offer his analysis.

The truth about whether there would be enough money for extracurricular activities and sports might have been knowable before the referendum.

The story says the district only estimated $150 more per student but what’s being discussed is more than that.

District 300 estimated less than that for referendum propaganda purposes–$100.

And here’s the Belvidere superintendent’s explanation to reporter Kevin Haas:

If the Board of Education would have knowledge of what the state aid was going to be, they may not have run a referendum. But at the same time we still don’t know what that state aid is going to be. And we won’t know until July.

Excuse me, if I smell something I wouldn’t keep in the house.

The Rockford paper endorsed the referendum.

This was part of the editorial:

If it fails, sports and extracurriculars will go, at least for a year. Simple.

And here’s part of what one person wrote after reading that, low and behold, sports and extracurriculars might not die:

… the school system lies….I can tell you, Belvidere will never get another vote out of me, ever….

And, here’s another comment from an “No” voter:

Now their bluff has been called, and they have been shown up. So now Belvidere most likely will get to keep sports, and the new high school will be staffed, WITHOUT a tax increase.

They simply sat down, decided that they didn’t want to take pay cuts, and used the kids as pawns. Now the kids should be upset with the BOE for using them in their little game, instead of the voters that voted NO.

= = = = =
The homemade square yellow sign saying “BUCS BOOSTER” in a half circle on the top and “SUPPORT ATHLETICS” in a half circle on the bottom with “VOTE YES” in the middle was in front of a home with a “NO CHEMTOOL” sign in Garden Prairie.

The other pictures of signs were taken last fall before the November referendum. I didn’t see any of them this time around, but I’ll bet some were re-cycled.

Click on the text of the referendum question and see if you can understand it.