Gov. George Ryan said Tuesday state legislative leaders are crafting a multimillion-dollar plan to bail out Hazel Crest District 152 1/2 through this school year, but that the money would have strings attached.
“The Hazel Crest schools are in trouble, and they need some help,” Ryan said after emerging from a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones (D-Chicago) and other legislators.
But as they scour the state budget during the legislative veto session for the roughly $4 million needed to keep the district operating through June, the lawmakers are adamantly opposed to simply handing over the money with no expectations.
“We don’t want to throw good money after bad,” said Jones.
He would support legislation to provide $2.5 million to keep the school district solvent, he said, as long as the bill provided for a financial oversight committee and the possibility that Hazel Crest would consolidate with surrounding school districts in the next school year.
An oversight panel was appointed in October by the Illinois State Board of Education to manage the distressed district’s finances.
The $2.5 million would be added to the $1.5 million already promised to the district by Jones and outgoing Sen. William Shaw (D-Dolton) who had agreed to dip into the Democratic caucus’ pork-barrel funds to buy the district time to come up with a long-term solution.
State Board of Education officials met with legislators Tuesday morning to present detailed ideas for funding the district, said Lee Milner, board spokesman.
Board members and lawmakers hope to shape those ideas into legislation and pass it before the veto session ends in December, he said.
Lawmakers said they don’t want to open the floodgates for future school districts to come to the legislature for individual bailouts. But they noted Hazel Crest could be forced to shut its doors and send students elsewhere as early as January if some kind of bailout is not passed.
The legislative help, including use of an oversight panel, is patterned partly after state efforts to help schools earlier this year in Round Lake District 116 and previously in East St. Louis.
But Sen. Dan Cronin (R-Elmhurst), who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said a long-term solution has yet to be worked out and that the district’s financial troubles appear “very, very serious.”
He said consolidating Hazel Crest and neighboring districts is being discussed, but the idea is unpopular among many parents.
While Hazel Crest is nearly bankrupt, hundreds of school districts–about 8 of 10 throughout Illinois–are running deficits, officials estimate.
Though Jones and Shaw support a bailout and Ryan has thrown his weight behind a solvency plan, it is unclear whether a bill asking for $2.5 million would stand a chance of passing in the House and Senate.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Steve Rauschenberger (R-Elgin) has said he doubts the legislature would back such an amount unless it included a comprehensive solution for the budget problems of more than one district.
State budget constraints also are a concern. Just last week, Ryan asked his agency directors to prepare to cut more than $200 million from the current budget plan.
