 That's because while Quinn's budget has a slight increase in the
money used in classrooms, it comes with $93 million in cuts to
transportation reimbursements for school districts. For most
schools, that means they'd get half of what they had just two years
ago to get the same number of students to and from school.Options
like shuffling money around or raising local property taxes to fill
the gap Quinn's proposal would create are all being discussed by
school officials.
"It's just another burden placed on the local taxpayers," said
Lea Damisch, superintendent at the Marengo School District. "If you
only have ‘X’ amount of dollars coming into your coffers on a yearly
basis and this much comes from local tax dollars and this much comes
from state tax dollars, if the state dollars go away, then that has
to be then put forth back on the local taxpayers."
Damisch said the Marengo schools are at the maximum tax rate they
can have without a voter approved-referendum, something they've
tried but failed to get passed for three years.
During those three years, all extracurricular activities were cut
at Marengo. This year will see the return of sports and band, but on
a pay-to-play basis. Want to join the seventh-grade basketball team?
Pay $185.
It hasn't gotten to that point at the 2,200-student East Richland
School District, yet. Superintendent Marilyn Holt said all options
are on the table to make up the $176,885.28 the district would lose
if the proposed cut becomes reality.
It's definitely a topic that will come up at the next school
board meeting, Holt said.
"We have made the challenging decisions (in the past), and yet
this one will take all of our imagination and creativity to try and
figure out how to do this," she said.
Both East Richland and Marengo districts serve large rural areas.
Alton School District's 6,543 students live mostly in urban and
suburban areas, but that doesn't make taking the transportation hit
any easier, according to Chris Norman, director of financial
services for the Alton district.
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That district already has been working to save money used for bus
routes.
"We changed our bell times for this school year to help
efficiencies; we reduced some bus stops; and all those things helped
us to save about $400,000. But the governor's proposal would create
another half-million-dollar hole," Norman noted. "You get to a point
where you can't just keep cutting, reducing, changing things. We've
done almost all we can there."
Like Marengo, Alton's property taxes can't be raised without a
voter referendum, something Norman doubts would pass. So now the
school looks to money it can move around to bridge the gap, like
general state aid.
"Given the times we're in, that's difficult enough as it is. We
took actions last year to reduce expenditures by $3 million to
address the cuts we were already dealing with," Norman said.
As schools begin crafting budgets for the next year, the possible
loss of transportation dollars plays into the process. For the
Champaign school district, it would represent another $200,000,
according to Lynn Peisker, spokeswoman for the district.
"We're in the midst of a budgeting process right now in which we
are looking at cutting out $2 million out of our regular operating
budget already, prior to this announcement," she said.
How and where the money needed to get students to and from the
central Illinois schools will come from is a question that doesn't
have an answer, yet, Peisker said.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By ANDREW THOMASON]
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