“Consolidation Blues, Riff Two: Center of Gravity”

Consolidation Blues, Riff Two: Center of Gravity

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 06:12 PM PST

By Mick Parsons For The Prairie Advocate News

One good thing that's happened is that the state of Illinois finally released more funds to West Carroll School district . . . all but $200,000. On last year's budget. That doesn't solve the $650,000 and counting hole the state has in this year's budget. For West Carroll Superintendent Craig Mathers, though, that he got anything at all is a positive sign that more may come. It helps that the Illinois legislature recently passed a law that requires them to pay out all school district monies from last year's budget by December 30th of this year. If they don't pay WC the remaining $200,000. the state will be in violation of it's own law.

Of course, it doesn't escape Mathers that all they have to do is pass another law giving themselves an extension. But he tries to stay positive.

At the December 14th school board meeting in Thomson, the WC school board will decide whether or not to pursue the one cent sales tax increase. This tax increase would, if voted in by the public and passed by the County Board, who has final say, would go for capital projects and – if Mathers has his way – tax abatement. This would mean that residents in West Carroll School District would see a decrease in their taxes – something he says that should appeal to homeowners. In a recent Savanna City Council meeting, businesses there voiced their displeasure at the proposal; but Mathers says he is not surprised.

No one else should be surprised, either. The easiest solution has come from state and federal mandates that are all talk and no teeth. Unfunded mandates such as the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind, and the most recent debacle for Illinois, Race to the Top, have done little except tax an already burdened school system with more requirements and no way to fulfill them.

Public education since the Clinton Administration has labored under an ever increasing reliance on standardized testing to indicate a school's ability to educate its students. This has led to increased state and federal control over what had traditionally been a local concern, which in turn leads a segment of the voting public to call into question every single thing the school district does. The first thing people point to is how schools spend money, and the cry of every penny pincher inevitably comes down to "they're spending too much money!" Of course, when West Carroll and other schools have had to sell bonds or spend ahead on the following year's budget just to make payroll, people assume that public schools are simply bleeding money.

Selling bonds, though, is a short term solution that comes back around to hurt everyone. That money has to be paid back. Selling bonds is, in essence, taking out a loan. The interest on the bonds depends entirely on the district's rating . . . which is determined by the EPV, (Estimated Property Value) and the number of students per district.

The state, when looking at the number of students in any given school district, assumes that a certain percentage of the school's budget will come in the form of taxes based on student population – which is a double-edged sword in an economy where more people rent than buy homes.

In Carroll County, this is compounded by a median age of 41 – which means that most of the people who live in Carroll County don't actually have kids in school and are among the first, though certainly not the only, to feel the squeeze of a tax increase. In fact, according to the 2000 census, only 24.30% of the people living in Carroll county are under the age of 18; and given that the projected census will show a decrease in population rather than an increase, it becomes easy to see how the state's version of Three Card Monte works out for Carroll County Schools. The state uses these numbers to determine the district's rating; and West Carroll's rating, based on a falling EVP and a lower than average student population, isn't good.

What this means is that the school has to pay a higher interest rate when paying off bonds. And guess what that means?

It means that residents living in the West Carroll School District will see a tax increase whether the one cent tax increase passes or not. The only difference is that if the the one cent tax increase fails to pass, homeowners will see a thirteen to fifteen cent per dollar increase. According to Mathers, WC has to pay $150,000 this year alone on bond and interest payments.

He hopes, however, that the West Carroll school board will approve the measure and allow him to go forward with convincing voters that a one cent increase spread out over everyone – including tourists – is better than a thirteen to fifteen cent increase just on homeowners. "I hope they direct me to go ahead and do that," he says.

State budgeting, Mathers adds, is "one big shell game." He's not kidding. Take the Carroll County Board budgeting falderal and multiply by the population of Cook County. Then add ten times the number of people who live outside Cook County. This is the kind of math the state engages in when it determines how to fund schools statewide. For the common person to track how the state actually funds education – or doesn't, as the case may be – is akin to falling down Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole with Alice screaming all the merry way.

Not only is budgeting like trying to find the right needle in a needle stack , but so is getting any concrete information about the budget. Contacting the ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education) is more difficult than contacting the President of the United States. At least President Obama has his own email – even if he's not necessarily the one who checks it; the State Superintendent of Schools, however does not. And when I emailed the listed contact, Jean Ladage, who would "forward the message to the appropriate person" I was told to email someone else.

Apparently the term "appropriate person" means different things to different people, because I was then contacted by the ISBE's Freedom of Information Officer, Matt Vanover. He left a message on my cell phone. The first thing I wondered, after wondering why the State Superintendent of Schools can't be bothered to answer a press email, was whether I would have been passed off on the FOIA officer if my email ended in chicagotribune.com rather than gmail.com.

One of the questions I asked Craig Mathers was who his contact was at the ISBE. My question had two purposes. The first was to get a name. Any name. Name dropping helps when you're on the phone with someone who amounts to the state government version of lower-low management. Being the FOIA Officer is one of those entry level jobs that requires a college degree and a basic working knowledge of the English language. The second reason I asked Mathers about who he talked to was that I intended to follow up with a question that would have gone something like:

"So how does it feel knowing that there's no one on the ISBE who would even drive to the northwestern part of Illinois unless they're roughing it in Galena or going antique shopping?"

I never got to ask that question. As it turns out, Mathers doesn't have a contact on the ISBE. As a matter of fact, when he's trying to figure out where the state money is, he doesn't talk to the ISBE at all.

The mistake on my part, I suppose, came from sitting through the Budget Forum in DeKalb and listening to people beg the ISBE for continued funding for various programs. In fact, there are only three people – that's right three – who control the destiny of Illinois public school money: Governor Quinn, Comptroller Daniel W. Hynes, and State House Majority Leader Michael J. Madigan.

Mathers says that as long as the three of them actually agree on what's important for education in Illinois, everything is fine. The problem is, of course, that they don't. Quinn, for example, believes that preschool education is important, which is why he mandated that money be taken out of the state's transportation reimbursement – currently the state theoretically reimburses the districts for 40% of its bussing costs, where it used to be 80% – in order to fund pre-kindergarten education. Mathers agrees that that preschool is important and should be funded – but he questions the wisdom of taking money from a state mandated program in order to fund a program that is not state mandated.

Comptroller Hynes, on the other hand, focuses on accounting and making sure that all the balances are paid off – even if that means making cuts that would be akin to gutting struggling districts like West Carroll in a fashion reminiscent to the end of Braveheart.

As for Rep. Madigan, it's hard to tell where his focus is when it comes to education – but when he does care about something, he can get a bill passed in eight hours. Clearly education hasn't merited this kind of attention.

Mathers adds that Madigan wouldn't recognize him from a hole in the wall – though he did go to Springfield during the gubernatorial campaign in order to bend Quinn's ear. It cost him the price of gas and $20 to get into a dinner he never got the chance to eat.

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