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2 WAYS TO
FIX ILLINOIS’ TOO-HIGH PROPERTY TAXES, TEACHER SHORTAGE
Illinois Policy Institute/
Ann Miller
Redirecting some of Illinois’ school
district administrative overhead could attract top talent to the more
than 4,100 teacher openings. The savings could be $1,317 per taxpayer in
one veteran teacher’s hometown. Reform pensions, and that amount grows.
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 For 30 years, Deb Roti was a special education teacher at a public school in
Cary, Illinois, and saw firsthand how Illinois prioritizes administration over
education.
“It is my firm belief that we have too many administrators making huge salaries
that will require larger and larger pension payouts,” Roti said. “The numbers
reported on the largest pensions upset everyone, including teachers and
rank-and-file police and firefighters.”
“Huge salaries and large payouts for the top pension-earners take money and
resources that could be used to attract talented personnel and invest in
resources for students and communities.”
Public schools in Illinois have 4,120 unfilled teaching positions, more than
double the number from 2017, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
The minimum wage for a teacher in Illinois was set to $32,076 for fiscal year
2021 by state law.
The average administrator salary in Illinois is $111,293, according to ISBE.
Over 9,000 administrators in the state make over $100,000 per year, according to
an Illinois Policy Institute analysis.
Add high salaries from too much administrative overhead to vast pension debt and
the two crowd out investment in schools, classrooms and students. They also are
driving property taxes so high that Illinois homeowners pay double the national
average, with only New Jersey’s property taxes higher.
Roti and her neighbors could see a $1,317 average savings on their property tax
bills just by consolidating the four separate school districts they help
support, according to an analysis by the Illinois Policy Institute.
Roti worked in Cary, a far northwestern suburb of Chicago, where the population
is 18,271. Cary Community School District 26 has five schools with 16
administrators. Next door is Prairie Grove District 46 with eight administrators
overseeing two schools for a town with a population of 1,805. Neighboring Fox
River Grove 3, population 4,854, employs four administrators for two schools.
“This equates to over 28 administrators within a small area,” Roti said. “And
all these feeder schools go to the same high school, which is a separate
district with more administrators.”
Illinois has 852 school districts and nearly half serve only one or two schools
– just like both Prairie Grove and Fox River Grove that Roti’s taxes help
support. All that excess bureaucracy leads to high costs: Illinois spent $1.27
billion on district-level administration in 2020 for 1.9 million students.
Florida is able to serve 2.8 million students for one-fifth that cost.
One solution almost passed the Illinois General Assembly last spring – until
teachers unions derailed it. The idea is still viable, though.
The Classrooms First Act would create a commission to make specific
recommendations on the consolidation of school districts with a goal of
decreasing the number by at least 25% across Illinois. Parents, teachers and all
other residents would have the opportunity to contribute through a public
comment period with hearings across the state. All district merger
recommendations would require voter approval, with a majority of voters in each
affected school district agreeing to the change. This maximizes local control.
[to top of second column] |
Consolidation would apply only to districts – the administrative units
overseeing schools – and the Classrooms First Act explicitly prohibits
recommending school closures. But were administration of the separate grade
school districts and high school district consolidated, it would free up $38.2
million in Roti’s community that could help improve classroom instruction,
increase teacher pay or provide property tax relief.
Another important fix to make sure Illinois prioritizes education dollars on the
classroom is pension reform. Illinois spends nearly 40% of its education dollars
on pensions, and still there is a massive gap between dollars available and
dollars promised school retirees.
“The pension problem in Illinois is multi-faceted and misunderstood,” Roti said.
“Now, we have huge shortages of teachers because salaries are low in Illinois
for educators, and due to the pension crisis, the state can’t even promise they
will have money to support teachers who are already retired. It’s decimating the
education field.”
The Teachers’ Retirement System is obligated to fund over $80.7 billion in
pension promises for which there are no funds. That threatens the retirement
security of current teachers and retirees. The system has 40% of the money it
will need to meet future obligations, which pension experts see as so low it may
be a point of no return from which only major infusions of taxes or major
changes to benefits can keep retirement checks coming.
Pensions eat more and more of Illinois’ education dollars, taking away from the
number of teachers and their pay. The state has made a 200% increase in spending
on teacher pensions since 2000, compared with a mere 20% increase on classroom
spending during that period.
A “hold harmless” pension reform plan developed by the Illinois Policy Institute
for the five statewide pension systems could save roughly $2.4 billion for the
state budget the first year and more than $50 billion through 2045. The plan
would also totally eliminate the state’s pension debt during that time, rather
than the 90% reduction state leaders hope for. It accomplishes all of that while
preserving every dollar of pension benefits promised to public workers for work
already performed.
Without real pension reform, hundreds of schools across the state will continue
to be forced to cut programs, increase class sizes, lay off teachers or hike
property taxes as more and more new state dollars are directed away from
classrooms and toward district administration and overpromised retirement
benefits.
Teachers work hard every day for their students and communities. School district
consolidation and constitutional pension reform can ensure teachers such as Roti
are fairly compensated, have a secure retirement and don’t face ballooning
property tax bills that threaten their ability to stay in their homes. |
