Education Faces Steep State Cuts

March 11, 2010

The state governor’s budget plan — dubbed “Fighting for Illinois” — is leaving education officials feeling defeated.

Gov. Pat Quinn stepped before the Illinois General Assembly on Wednesday and delivered the plan, which calls for the heaviest cuts to come out of the state’s funding for education.

According to numbers offered during the noontime speech, educa tion spending would take a $1.3 billion hit, equivalent to a 17 percent cut for grammar and high schools across the state.

Quinn said he proposed the cuts with “the greatest of reluctance.” The state is facing a $13 billion deficit this year.

Reluctance will not pay the bills for local school districts and Danville Area Community College, all of which now have to make concessions to prepare for the hit.

The situation is a new and difficult one for DACC President Alice Jacobs.

“In my community college career, this is the first time I have ever been concerned about if the state would send the money that had been appropriated,” she said Wednesday afternoon.

“We’re all accustomed to cuts,” Jacobs added. “But to have money that has been appropriated and to expect it and then have it not come is a new circumstance.”

The Westville School District plans to sit down next week and look at cutting $700,000 from its budget, according to Superintendent Jim Owens. He said a lot of school districts were expecting a large cut in state funding for the upcoming year.

Westville school board members will look at staff reductions as well as the loss of programs at the school.

“My concern in all of this is we’re still expected to provide every service, every imaginable thing for students, but we don’t get the money to provide those,” Owens said, adding the state continues to create mandates for schools.

“We all know we can cut back and tighten out belts, but we can’t be expected to offer every precious service.”

Owens said the school district’s focus at this point is to make the cuts without affecting the classrooms

“It’s going to come down to what we can offer economically and still move kids ahead,” he said, adding that parents have been understanding.

“I don’t think we can look at taxpayers and ask them to shoulder more of the burden when the state’s not paying their part,” Owens said.

Quinn, in wrapping up his speech, challenged the General Assembly to come up with an alternative to the steep education cuts. The governor then offered his own proposal — a 1 percent tax surcharge that is expected would offset the cuts.

He stressed that the legislators should move quickly on an alternative.

“We must invest in the future even in tough economic times,” he said, adding the “cost of doing nothing is too great.”

Danville District 118 Superintendent Mark Denman noted this is only the first step and legislators must approve the governor’s budget.

I just hope the state will tackle these issues,” he said. “The specifics are what we’d like to know.”

Overall, Quinn’s plan called for changes in five areas: creating jobs, cutting costs, strategic borrowing, continued federal assistance and increased state revenues.

State Sen. Dan Rutherford, R-Pontiac, whose district includes portions of northern Vermilion County, voiced his concerns on what appears to be heavy borrowing in an “imbalanced plan.”

“We need to hit the ‘reset button,’ and figure out our state’s real priorities,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “This pattern of borrowing and failing to encourage job creation will only worsen our state’s ab ility to recover from this massive deficit.”