When the legislature passed a plan last week to funnel more money to public schools and Gov. Jim Edgar signed it, most elementary school officials in the southwest suburban area had good reason to cheer.
The $485 million plan, designed to increase funding for the state’s financially hard pressed and fastest growing school districts, will result in a windfall next year for dozens of school districts in Will County and southwest Cook County.
All but five of the 25 elementary school districts in Will County will benefit from the measure. Ten of the 16 districts in the far southwest section of Cook County will benefit also.
Among the biggest winners in the southwest Chicago metropolitan area, according to projections supplied by the state, are Joliet Elementary School District 86, which is to receive an additional $2.2 million; New Lenox Elementary School District 122, set to receive an additional $1.9 million; and Plainfield Unit School District 202 in Will County, an estimated $6.6 million more.
They also include Tinley Park’s Kirby Elementary School District 140, which will receive an additional $3.4 million in the next state fiscal year; Matteson Elementary School District 162, which is set to receive $1 million more; and Oak Forest’s Forest Ridge Elementary School District 142 in Cook County, which will receive $1.1 million more.
For Plainfield Unit District 202, the state’s second fastest growing district, the additional funds “will help us meet the costs associated with growth,” said Steve Langert, the district’s director of business and financial services. Enrollment at the school, on average, is increasing 15 percent a year.
“It appears that the state’s initial projection overestimated what we will actually receive by as much as $2 million,” Langert said, adding that the district actually anticipates receiving $4.5 million.
For cash-strapped Joliet District 86, which serves more than 8,000 students in Joliet, the additional funding anticipated is a godsend, according to District Supt. Louis Coleman.
“We’re into deficit spending, so we feel good about the fact that we will be getting some relief,” Coleman said.
But there are some drawbacks to the new plan. Although the law signed by Edgar guarantees that no school district will receive less money, the provision is good for only one year. Several school districts may eventually lose state aid as a result.
And while elementary districts were reaping a windfall, officials of most high schools in the area had a sense they were being passed over.
Despite all of the fuss in the General Assembly over the last several months about the need to improve funding for education, the legislation that was finally approved will put very little additional money in their pockets. Overall, high school districts in the state will receive about 1 percent more next fiscal year.
Kim Knauer, a spokeswoman for the state Board of Education, said that is because of a change in the basic premise behind the legislation.
Up until now, the state funding formula for school aid used to favor high schools.
The argument was that because high schools needed more sophisticated equipment to teach such courses as biology, chemistry, physics and drivers education, they needed more money.
But now, she said, the state believes that money spent on students in their formative years is just as important, if not more so, than the money spent on them while they are in high school. As a result, the formula was changed to reflect that.
The only exceptions are some of the high schools that are part of unit school districts, such as Plainfield High School, which is part of Plainfield Unit School District 202. The district also includes two middle schools and six elementary schools.
“As an educator, I’m pleased that a number of (elementary) school districts are going to get some financial assistance,” said Lockport Township High School District Supt. Chris Ward. “As a high school district superintendent, I’m not happy that it’s going to affect my district negatively.”
Some area high school superintendents have already resigned themselves to the fact that they won’t be getting additional funds.
“From the standpoint of the educational system in Illinois as a whole, it’s a plus,” said Lawrence Wyllie, superintendent of Lincoln-Way High School District 210, who doesn’t think the lack of new funding will hurt his district too much. “It’s at least going to infuse money into districts in dire need of it.”
But while the new law will substantially increase funding for public education in the state next year, some school officials remain disappointed.
They say the new plan will not permanently solve the education funding dilemma. An earlier bill would have gone a long way toward meeting that goal by increasing the state income tax, but the measure stalled in the General Assembly.
The key element of the new law is that it ensures that every school district in Illinois can spend a minimum of $4,225 per student per year. The new law provides aid to poorer school districts falling short of the goal as well as districts whose per-pupil spending is declining because of rapidly increasing enrollments.
An Edgar-appointed task force concluded in 1996 that $4,225 was the minimum amount needed for a basic education in Illinois. That amount will rise by $100 a year in 2000 and again in 2001.
The new school funding plan is financed mainly by increases in telephone, cigarette and riverboat casino taxes.
