Story posted Wednesday, March 3, 2010
State Owes Local Schools Millions
By TIM O'CONNOR Journal & Topics Reporter
The State of Illinois is behind on payments to Niles school districts by more than $7.5 million combined — leading some already financially struggling schools to further cut budgets.
Niles Elementary School Dist. 71, which consists of Culver School on Oakton St., has already made $500,000 in cuts for next year because officials believe the state will continue to fall behind. Those cuts include moving two support positions to part-time, cutting a secretary, budgeting hundreds of thousands less for maintenance, and downgrading an after school program that helps struggling students.
The state is $77,000 behind in payments, which has led the small school district to take money out of its reserve funds, according to Supt. Amy Kruppe. The state is on the hook for $590,000 to Dist. 71 by the end of the year but Kruppe said she doesn't expect to see all that money.
Further, she expects the state to replace some funding next year with federal stimulus money, meaning there will be no boost from the stimulus funds as districts expected. Kruppe said that stimulus money would go toward keeping teachers that may have otherwise lost their jobs.
"Jobs were retained but they weren't created," she said.
The school is urging Culver families to contact local representatives about the late payments.
Other Niles school districts are waiting on much larger bills. Dist. 219 is owed $2,7 million. Dist. 207 — which recently approved cutting 75 teaching and 62 non-teaching jobs next year — is owed $2.6 million. Districts 63 and 64 are both owed a little more than $1 million.
David Bein, executive director for business services for East Maine School Dist. 63, said the districts would be forced to raise property taxes if the state does not come through with payments.
Bein said state legislators needed to focus less on re-election and more on the budget to sort out the school funding mess.
"I don't want to ask the taxpayers to pay more and cover the fiscal mismanagement of our state," he said.
He said many payments, which mostly cover state mandated programs, are three to four months late.
Jim Szczepaniak, community relations director for Niles Township High Schools Dist. 219, said funding for those state mandated programs, like special education, has been problematic for years. However, he said the district has been financially sounds enough to make up for late payments.
"We're in a much better condition than many school districts because we have a healthy property tax base and we're not as dependent on state revenue," he said.
Only 4% of Dist. 219's budget comes from state funds but Szczepaniak said late payments could create challenges in time.
"We are in position where this year we are financially sound," he said. "If the problems that districts are seeing with the lack of state funds continues the problem is compounding."
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