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Lawmakers start new push for school construction money

Posted August 21, 2007 11:00 pm

Adriana Colindres

Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, on Wednesday proposed legislation intended to help Rochester and 23 other school districts get $150 million in state money they have been promised, but which repeatedly eludes them.

Funds for the school construction grants were included in a supplemental spending bill that Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed into law last week. The measure also contained money to give lawmakers and other top officials, including the governor, a 10 percent pay raise.

But officials with the Blagojevich administration said a technicality would prevent Rochester and the other school districts from receiving that money. The reason, they said, is the supplemental spending plan covers the fiscal year that ended June 30, and school districts would have had to execute agreements before that date in order to get the funds.

Sen. Susan Garrett, D-Lake Forest, called the latest twist on school construction grants "a bureaucratic nightmare."

School officials "felt that we had crossed the finish line and we were ready to go until it became apparent that paperwork, in quotation marks, needed to be found, filled out, whatever," Garrett added. "I mean, it's one thing to say you didn't fill out the form, but when there's no form to fill out, it's an impossible task."

Bomke's amendment to House Bill 3860 would reappropriate state funds from the fiscal year 2008 budget to pay the 24 districts.

He has sent a letter to Senate colleagues seeking their support on the legislation.

"I'd be real surprised if not everybody signs on to the bill," Bomke said Wednesday.

In the letter, he wrote: "These schools have already waited too long. At this juncture, my amendment represents the quickest and easiest way to ensure that these schools receive the funds due them."

The Rochester School District has been waiting more than four years for the $10.2 million it was told it would get through the construction-grant program.

The district went ahead with improvement plans anyway, thanks to two successful referendums. Voters approved an $11.2 million bond plan in 2005 after the district determined it could no longer wait for the state money to materialize. Three years earlier, voters authorized borrowing $8 million to pay for a high school addition, a new junior high, an auditorium and an elementary school addition.

Bomke isn't the only lawmaker seeking to make sure the schools get their promised construction-grant money.

Rep. Lisa Dugan, D-Bradley, on Tuesday filed House Bill 4130, which would re-appropriate $150 million to the Capital Development Board for school construction grants in the current fiscal year. Reps. John Bradley, D-Marion, and Daniel Beiser, D-Alton, are co-sponsors on Dugan's bill.

Bernard Schoenburg contributed to this report. Adriana Colindres can be reached at (217) 782-6292 or Adriana.colindres@sj-r.com

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