If an employee who just received five consecutive years of hefty salary increases complained about not getting enough pay, he would raise eyebrows.
A loan recipient who asks for more money from the bank, explaining he has none, is asking for a finger wag.
Likewise, when nearly half of Illinois’ nearly 900 school districts can’t make ends meet, and 49 of them run deficits for at least five years in a row, fingers and eyebrows need to hop into action.
State funding for public school education has jumped 45 percent over the last five years, while overall school revenues have increased 38 percent. Add to that another $2 billion in new construction money provided by the state, matched by $2 billion in local money.
Yet many state educators are complaining about a funding crisis, as detailed Wednesday by Tribune reporter Diane Rado.
Why is it that so many Illinois schools–and not just ones in high poverty areas–increasingly are operating deep in the red?
Some districts in deficit trouble do face true burdens, chief among them an education funding system that regrettably relies more on local property taxes than on income taxes. The proliferation of tax increment financing in Chicago and beyond has robbed schools of new tax revenues in the name of reviving down-and-out business districts with tax incentives. Some fixed costs have risen above the rate of inflation.
Enrollment is soaring in some suburban areas with high development, placing an extra burden on local schools when state and federal subsidies don’t keep up. Then there are districts, like Calumet City’s 155, that have experienced spikes in the number of poor students they serve, but property tax caps have limited the ability to raise local funds to educate the wave of new kids.
Yes, those are hurdles. But here’s another figure: Overall spending by the state’s public schools has gone up 45 percent in five years.
Too many school districts–including ones that run consistent deficits and borrow from year to year to cover their financial Grand Canyons–are unwilling to change the spending style to which they’ve become accustomed. They resist adjusting the often extremely generous and comprehensive benefit packages offered to teachers, and are loath to demand more rigorous work schedules or restructured curricula for the higher pay. That is unacceptable.
School officials need to start thinking more innovatively about how to operate in a changed economy. What about privatizing cafeteria services? There are dozens of tiny school districts in the state–many of them should consolidate for efficiency. Think twice about building and operating a new swimming pool when the local park district across the street has a nice one that goes unused during the day.
Voters have shown a willingness to approve local education tax increases in four of every 10 referendums since 1997. But after five years of strong investment in education it will get more difficult to convince taxpayers it’s still not nearly enough–unless schools get smarter about managing what they’ve got.
