Less than two weeks ago, Gov. James Thompson joined President Bush and the other governors to hail their commitment to a series of broad goals that the country`s educational system should attain by the year 2000.
On Wednesday, in proposing his final state budget, Thompson raised concerns that Illinois will have problems meeting more-tangible goals in its next fiscal year.
”There`s no question we cannot introduce and then expect goals to be resolved without offering some financial support for them,” said Margaret Blackshere of the Illinois Federation of Teachers.
Thompson`s education budget for fiscal year 1991 proposes to infuse colleges, universities and grade and high schools with a $128 million increase.
The governor`s proposal would push state spending for elementary and high schools to $3.08 billion and result in $1.56 billion available for higher education in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Few expected the state to shell out large new amounts for schools after the more than $700 million raise this fiscal year, primarily through the legislature`s approval of a temporary 20 percent income-tax increase.
Groups representing educators, administrators and school boards are looking beyond Thompson`s recommendations for at least $300 million more, even though there is a perception that last year`s tax increases have provided at least a temporary cure for school-funding woes.
”We`ve got to convince people that they`re catching up for past sins,”
said state School Supt. Robert Leininger. ”We still have demands on us, and there are still programs we`re trying to implement from school reform in 1985. ”In a year like this, an election year, we`ve got people going around saying (education) is a No. 1 priority. We either need to be told we`re a priority and treated like one or tell us we`re not so we can plan.”
Thompson repeatedly has called education his top priority and, over the span of the Republican governor`s budgets, state spending for elementary and secondary schools will have increased 95 percent, while spending for higher education has risen 104 percent.
During the same period, however, inflation has increased nearly 116 percent.
Thompson`s budget proposal amounts to a boost in education funding of 2.7 percent compared with an expected inflation rate of 4.1 percent.
And while state education spending has approximately doubled during Thompson`s tenure, the reliance on local property taxes to pay for grade and high schools has steadily increased.
In fiscal 1978, Thompson`s first full budget year, the state`s share of funding of local schools was 47 percent, compared with 46 percent from local sources and 7 percent from the federal government.
Under his fiscal 1991 plan, the state`s share of funding would fall to about 39 percent, local taxes would account for about 54 percent and federal dollars would remain at 7 percent, according to preliminary estimates.
But reducing the property-tax burden will require additional dollars that Thompson says are not available, and changes in the complex school-aid formula could translate into political difficulties for legislators in districts that would see a reduction in state dollars.
”It`s nice the president and the National Governors` Association are setting some goals, but I`m worried about Illinois in the 1990s,” Leininger said.
