House OKs long-awaited money for school districts
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">Illinois lawmakers are taking another stab at giving two dozen school districts millions of dollars in promised construction money that's never been paid.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">The House Tuesday voted 108-0 to approve House Bill 4130 that will give those schools a total of $150 million to aid in their construction projects.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">A similar supplemental spending bill was OK'd by lawmakers last year, but the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing a technicality, said the schools couldn't get the money.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">This year's sponsor, Rep. Lisa Dugan, D-Bradley, said Blagojevich in September promised to support a bill giving schools the money as long as it wasn't loaded down with spending for unrelated programs. Her bill deals only with money to fulfill the state's promises to those schools owed money.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">"I assume he will live up to his word," Dugan said.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">"The governor will not again be able to come up with some lame excuse not to give them their money," added Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">Blagojevich spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch said the governor is "eager" to help the schools.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">"The House's action is a first step. We look forward to the next step -- hearing the General Assembly's ideas on how to pay for the grants," Rausch said in an e-mailed statement.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">She did not respond to a request for elaboration. However, Dugan's bill would add the school-construction allocation to the current state budget. Forecasters have said state tax collections are running $750 million or more short of being able to pay for all of the spending now in the budget, let alone any additional expenditures.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">"Is revenue available?" asked Rep. Kevin McCarthy, D-Orland Park. "Will this put us another $150 million in the hole?"
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">"I assume it is there," Dugan said.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">Rochester School Superintendent Tom Bertrand said his district is "cautiously optimistic" it will finally get the $10 million the state promised in 2002 to help with construction of a new junior high school, auditorium and cafeteria.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">"We've certainly been there before. We hope our elected officials will do what we elected them to do and fulfill the obligation that's been outstanding for six years," Bertrand said.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">Schools are owed the money under a program through which the state promised to help with construction projects if school districts put up local funds. The program ran out of state money with Rochester at the top of the list of districts deemed most worthy.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">Funding to help those schools was included in a supplemental budget bill passed last summer than included money for lawmaker pay raises. Although Blagojevich signed the bill, schools never got the money. The administration said the bill covered the budget year that ended June 30, 2007, and none of the school districts completed grant applications prior to that date.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">Bertrand, among others, was outraged, calling the excuse "incomprehensible" and a "political charade."
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;" class="BODY">Doug Finke can be reached at (217) 788-1527.