Rauner will have a few friends in coming weeks; schools get their cash

We’re less than a week away from the point in time when the lack of a budget for state government causes the government to shut down, yet Gov. Bruce Rauner ensured on Wednesday that he will have a few friends remaining.

This bank will get cracked; what about rest of Ill.?

Those “friends” will be the education community; who learned this week that they will continue to get their money – regardless of what happens to the rest of state government.

FOR RAUNER GAVE his signature of support to the bill that covered the part of state government that handled general state aid payments to public schools, early childhood education, bilingual education programs and the Teachers Retirement System.

Rauner had threatened a series of cuts he said would have to be made to state government to balance out the budget without any significant increases in income. Which was his way of saying he’d want some of his anti-labor measures implemented before he’d consider any tax adjustments.

Those cuts would have included a failure to make state aid payments that each and every single public school district in Illinois counts on to cover their operating costs.

Those payments for the upcoming academic year begin in August. Literally, Aug. 10 was the date that public schools would start to suffer because of the political stalemate.

BUT NOW WITH the education appropriations signed off on, Illinois government will be able to pay bills beginning Wednesday that relate to public education.

So we don’t have to worry about our local schools having to cut their spending for the upcoming school year. Or perhaps not having enough money on hand to even begin the new school year – which was a reality that cash-strapped districts in rural Illinois were facing.

RAUNER: Did he make friends, or enemies?

Now, the schools will still have a lack of cash and won’t have any money for extras. But parents all over the state will be able to breathe a sigh of relief at the thought that they’d be stuck with their kids because school couldn’t reopen following summer break.

Also pleased, I’m sure, are the school administrators who currently are putting together their budgets for the upcoming school year without knowing when, or how much, money they would be able to count on from state government.

ADMITTEDLY, THIS DOESN’T resolve the state’s problems. The rest of state government still faces the prospect of a shut-down because the governor and the Legislature’s leadership aren’t capable of coming agreement on how money should be spent.

MADIGAN: Still apart on rest of budget

Or even how much money the state will have for Fiscal 2016.

The fact that education got its appropriations approved first may wind up meaning everything else could wind up having to be cut even more than anticipated.

Even in the statement Rauner issued saying he had signed the education appropriation, he couldn’t help but take a pot shot at the political people who won’t just cave in to his ideological whims.

“I REFUSE TO allow (Illinois House) Speaker (Michael) Madigan and the legislators he controls to hold our schools hostage as part of their plan to protect the political class and force a tax hike on the middle class without real reform,” he said.

Although I’m aware that many educators are viewing this as a matter of Rauner trying to place the blame on them because the business class wants a tax break that will bolster their financial bottom lines.

Seriously, I have encountered many Chicago-area school administrators who are viewing Madigan and his staff to keep them apprised of what is happening in state government and why Rauner is too eager to throw that whole system out-of-whack.

Those people will now be less hostile toward the governor; a few may even come around to seeing his way of thinking. But I suspect he’s still going to have more than his share of enemies who will linger on long after this current partisan spat is resolved.

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Some people never learn

Perhaps it’s the distortion of there being 96 counties in Illinois outside of the Chicago area that makes political people think it has more than the roughly one-third of the state’s population.


BRADY: Fixing funds? Or making enemies?

But it seems that at least one Republican gubernatorial candidate is determined to be the preference of rural Illinois, without any regard to what the urban part of the state thinks.

THAT’S THE IMPRESSION I got after reading the reports about William Brady’s thoughts about who ought to pay for pensions for retired school teachers.

Brady told the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald newspaper he thinks that school districts ought to be responsible for any part of pensions caused by future pay hikes districts provide to their teachers.

Since salaries are going to increase in the future, it would mean a gradual shift in the funding of pension programs from state government to the local school districts – a concept that WILL tick off school superintendents all acros the state.

There already are enough officials who are prepared to symbolically strangle Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, for having suggested that perhaps one key to resolving the state’s financial problems is to have school districts take over full responsibilities for the pensions of their retirees.

I’M SURE THAT Brady, the state senator from downstate Bloomington whose bid for governor in 2010 failed because he lacked support in urban areas, thinks he has come up with the perfect compromise – since the state would continue to provide for the part of the pensions they’re already covering.

All I know is that I have dealt with enough schools officials across the state to know this is an untouchable issue to them. They say that threatening to alter Social Security funding is a “third rail” among the electorate that kills any candidate suicidal-enough to touch it?

One could probably say that this issue has the same effect amongst educators.

But in the Chicago suburbs, this will play particularly poorly. Because state funding for public education already is on the decline. The reaction of the school officials will be to turn to the shares of local property tax revenues they receive to come up with the money.

THAT MEANS THE local school districts would need more money. Which they will turn to their local residents to raise. Which means an increase in property taxes overall – it only takes one government entity in a community (whether City Council, school board, park district, sewage district, etc.) to cause a homeowner to pay more when their property tax bill is due.

And for those who rent, the landlord will think nothing of passing along the property tax increases they pay onto their tenants.

In suburban districts where local tax levels already are high, the residents will grouse and gripe about paying more. In those districts where the local economy is declining (particularly many districts in southern Cook County), there just won’t be any additional money to cover such expenses!

There already are significant discrepancies between school districts that make it impossible for all children in this state to get an equal quality level of education. Does this threaten to make it more difficult for certain school districts to obtain, and keep, quality educators?

THE WHOLE POINT to having the state cover the cost of pensions was meant to equalize that factor. Every teacher ought to have a shot at a pension they can live off of in those years after they stop working. Having the state handle this issue for everyone was meant to balance things out.

Which is why it is the quirk of the process that the Chicago Public Schools teachers do not partake in state pension programs. They opted out years ago, figuring out a way to do better by their former faculty on their own.

Which means Madigan may be on to something with his past hints that maybe the Chicago schools pensions should be shifted to the state. Of course, that’s not going to happen. The increased costs to state government would harm it even more.

Plus, the thought of having to pay more because of Chicago schools would offend rural Illinois politicos, almost as much as Brady will offend the suburban officials who think they will get hit with more costs because of his pension-shift theory.

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What is fair, when it comes to pension reform? Can Lege figure it out?

We have two weeks before the newly-elected Illinois General Assembly gets sworn into office. Although the real question is going to be if the current state Legislature will be capable of coming up with a solution to the problem of inadequate funding of pension programs.

Pension reform rhetoric will fill the air around the Statehouse in coming days. Whether that means a solution will be found remains questionable.

We have been told so many times that the pension problem threatens to take down all of state government because the shortfall has grown way too big. We fixed too many financial problems in the past by underfunding the pension expenses!

PERSONALLY, I THINK many legislators have grown immune to the harsh talk. They think, just like they do on many other issues, that the world can operate at their own snail’s pace. The fact that the General Assembly cut back the number of days it will convene before the transition shows it would prefer to do as little as it has to.

So I won’t be surprised if it turns out that nothing is accomplished on this particular issue prior to Jan. 9 – even though Gov. Pat Quinn has made it clear he wants this issue to be THE priority for the final few days of the old Legislature; which begin a week from Wednesday in the Illinois Senate.

A large part of the problem lies with the pension program that covers the retirement benefits of school teachers who worked for districts in suburban and rural Illinois areas.

Because a logical part of any solution probably is that the school districts should be providing for the pensions offered to the teachers who worked there – instead of having the state do it.

OF COURSE, THAT does not really fix the problem. It just shifts it off onto someone else!

And the school district officials across Illinois have made it clear they hate the idea. They are convinced (rightfully so, probably) that their own tax levies would have to be increased significantly for them to be able to have enough money to cover those expenses.

The Teachers Retirement System program estimates that taxpayers would have to come up with about $800 million more per year if such a shift were suddenly imposed.

That means property tax increases in the mid-2010s for many homeowners who think they’re already being overtaxed. It also means increased outrage from the public, which is the last thing many of our legislators want to incur.

SOME PEOPLE THINK that this can be imposed gradually – over a period of years. Which would create the illusion that property taxes are not increasing so quickly.

Even though the end result would be that $800 million hike by the time it’s all over.

I honestly think this is the factor that will keep legislators from doing anything. It won’t be “courage” to prevent a tax increase on their part. It will be “fear” of infuriating the constituents!

This is one of those instances where sitting back and doing nothing has the potential to cause problems. But political inertia is, all too often, what the Illinois General Assembly is all about.

OF COURSE, I also get amused whenever I hear the state legislators from Chicago proper complain about the REAL problem. That being that the Chicago Teachers Union came up with a separate system for funding pensions for retirees of the Chicago Public Schools.

Local property owners already cover those expenses as Chicago residents. But since they’re also Illinois residents, they also get hit with a tax levy that asks them to cover the suburban/rural teacher retirees as well.

Everybody wants to see themselves as a victim, and everybody else as the bully in this case. Although I’m sure if city teacher retirees were to get “their way” and the state had to cover city retirees too, we’d have all those rural residents claiming this as another example of Chicago “bullying” the rest of Illinois.

Confusing? Of course it is! I’m sure the legislators preparing for a return next week to the Statehouse are equally confounded – and unlikely to reach agreement on a solution to the overarching problem.

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