The General Assembly approved a compromise two-year financial plan late Sunday to keep the Chicago Public Schools open, ending a two-month stalemate that often placed politics ahead of the needs of 411,000 students.
Indeed, politics played a role up until the end, with Republicans and Democrats struggling to set up a roll call that would cause the least harm to legislators who are targeted for defeat in next year’s election.
The House approved the rescue plan, a mix of borrowing and modest reforms, with no votes to spare, 71-44. The Senate followed more than two hours later, 37-19.
A supermajority of 71 House votes and 36 Senate votes were needed to pass the compromise and have it take effect immediately upon Gov. Jim Edgar’s signature.
The Senate vote was complicated by GOP Senate President James “Pate” Philip’s initial demand that Democrats provide most of the votes, even though Republicans hold a 32-27 majority in the chamber.
In addition, some Democratic African-American senators from Chicago opposed provisions that would divert $32 million in funds earmarked for impoverished students to school operations.
“It seems here that we have become confused about our role as legislators. That role is to protect the school system and to ensure that the children are taken care of first,” said Sen. Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), who voted “present.” “Everybody’s taken care of but the children.”
But Sen. Earlean Collins, another black Democrat from Chicago, said: “I’m going to support this bill because I don’t know how I can tell the children of the city of Chicago that I voted not to allow the schools to open.”
Much of the debate focused on legislative politics and the Republican governor, who announced his bid for re-election last week.
“Some people came into my community (four years ago) and said, `Edgar would be a good governor,’ ” said Rep. Charles Morrow, an African-American Democrat from the South Side.
“But you know what? Election time is about a year away, and anybody who comes into my community and says Edgar’s going to be a good governor is going to have a hard time getting out of my community.”
Legislators straggled into the Capitol in the early afternoon for the emergency session, made necessary last week when a federal appellate court dissolved a temporary restraining order that allowed the schools to stay open without a balanced budget.
If the legislature had not passed the package, which plugs the system’s multimillion-dollar deficit, schools would have been shut Monday morning.
Political concerns slowed the bill’s passage.
Republicans wanted more concessions from the Chicago Teachers Union. They also were unwilling to support the plan if Chicago Democrats were not overwhelmingly supportive.
That view was shared by Downstate lawmakers of both parties, who fear they will be blasted by challengers accusing them of helping Chicago schools and doing nothing to assist rural school districts.
“It’s not easy for me to vote for this bill when, in the last 10 days, school referendum (proposals) failed not only in my district but in the school district I grew up in,” said Sen. Thomas Dunn (D-Joliet).
“This piecemeal approach will not benefit education, will not address crime, will not make children have higher ACT scores. But I don’t think the solution is to shut down the schools.”
Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Urbana) noted that the agreement allows the Chicago School Finance Authority to borrow $378 million over the next two years, repaid through the authority’s 50-cent property-tax levy, with no state dollars involved.
“I don’t like being here and being the Downstate tail that the Chicago dog wags,” Johnson said.
“(Downstate areas) have our problems in the state, and we don’t have a special session of the legislature convened to deal with that. However, unlike the past when we have come down here and taken our assets and given them to Chicago, this package represents a victory for Downstate taxpayers.”
But there were concerns that a vote for the plan would only get the city’s public schools through this school year and next, forcing legislators to consider a possible tax increase or legalized riverboat gambling in Chicago to avoid a massive funding dropoff in 1995.
“Dr. Kervorkian couldn’t deliver a more fatal dose than is contained in this legislation,” said Rep. Bill Edley (D-Macomb), referring to the Michigan doctor who has assisted the terminally ill to commit suicide.
“It will topple like a house of cards in two years,” Edley said, calling it a “political document to get the mayor and the governor past their next elections.”
Edgar is seeking re-election next year; Mayor Richard Daley is expected to seek another term in the spring of 1995.
Republicans rushed to Edgar’s defense, commending him for the leadership he had shown on the issue. But Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, the powerful Southwest Side lawmaker who brokered the compromise, called the defense “laughable.”
The sharp debate underscored the fact that neither Republican or Democratic leaders got what they wanted in the compromise.
Madigan accepted a GOP demand to make it easier for individual schools to impose work-rule changes on collective bargaining units starting in 1995.
In exchange, Republicans accepted current contract language that ended lifetime job guarantees for supernumeraries, longtime teachers whose specialties are no longer taught, rather than seeking a statutory repeal of that class of teacher in 1995.
Most other portions of the agreement had been reached earlier.
Democrats accepted Republican demands that the package not include the diversion of $110 million in teacher pension money for school operations. Though the teachers union accepted the diversion, retirees had encouraged lawmakers to oppose it.
The financial plan also uses $32 million in Chapter I funds that were to be controlled by local school councils for low-income students. Senate Democratic leader Emil Jones of Chicago had fought against the Chapter I diversion until several reform groups agreed to the plan as part of a comprehensive package.
Democrats also agreed to the Republicans’ request to give the finance authority greater fiscal oversight, including the creation of an inspector general.
Republicans and Democrats were deadlocked for two months over the GOP’s demand to impose work-rule changes in 1995 that were greater than those the Chicago Teachers Union agreed to in its two-year contract with the Board of Education.
With the GOP ending a decade of Democratic control over the legislature by taking over the Senate this year, Republicans believed the schools’ fiscal crisis gave them the chance to force reforms in a system they had often criticized.
Democrats dismissed the Republicans’ efforts as union busting, contending that work-rule issues should be negotiated in collective bargaining rather than being put into law.
But when the tentative agreement was reached Friday, it became clear that Republican and Democratic leaders had each conceded. They did not want face with the political ramifications of having the state’s largest school system shut down.
