Small School Size

[Lookout Kid]

Quinn is a lowlife for holding education hostage in his political game. If Gov. Quinn had more accurately called the proposed income tax increase a "State Pension Surtax" instead of an "Education Surtax", he would be losing the election. It's really too bad the GOP didn't pick a more moderate candidate this time around. I really don't want to vote for Quinn, but Brady is just too down state and too conservative for me. I feel there are no good choices in thie election.

[chet everett]

Brady is good guy, anybody who believes otherwise is sucking up the BS that Madigan and Quinn are both shoveling out as fast as they can.

If you look at his voting record in Springfield and his life experience you really could not ask for a more mainstream guy:
Who is Bill Brady? > Bill Brady for Illinois 2010 | Bill Brady for Governor of Illinois | Senator Bill Brady, Candidate for Governor of Illinois 2010 (http://bradyforillinois.com/about/who-is-bill-brady/ - broken link)
Why Bill Brady? > Bill Brady for Illinois 2010 | Bill Brady for Governor of Illinois | Senator Bill Brady, Candidate for Governor of Illinois 2010 (http://bradyforillinois.com/about/why-bill-brady/ - broken link)

Anybody that thinks the election of Brady to Governor would involve any radical changes to things other than the massive culture corruption is clearly bamboozled by the Madigan-Quinn tag team. Lack of a vote is just as bad, as the super close primary showed that morons that did not even follow the pull-out of one of the candidates tipped the vote away from an even more electable candidate...

[chet everett]

Cohdane:

If you want to post the name / numeric designation of your district I will show you exactly how little of the the money that your district gets is coming from Springfield.

Here is the info from one of the largest districts on the North Shore that has any reliance on State money:
Interactive Illinois Report Card

If you add up the local & federal amount you divide that by the State general aid is less than 4%. If you ask ANYBODY that runs any kind of an organization if they take THE ENTIRE 4% out of a single year's budget and not have any noticeable impact on their customers you will get a RESOUNDING "no problem". If you further were to ask any competent person familiar with fiscal controls what sort of strategy could be devised to cope with a potential multi-year decline it is simply matter for basically any organization to restructure their ongoing expenditures.

Virtually all well schools districts in Illinois spend more than 80% of the revenue on salaries, if their negotiated agreements allow that expenditure to rise significantly faster than the rate of inflation the obviously have created an unwise situation. I assure you that the combination of automatic step increases baked into every district contract, together with the raises that are greater than inflation, as well as lane change incentives are unsustainable.

As a former teacher I have no problem ensuring that teachers are well paid, but if teacher pay and the money that flows from that pay to legislators through Union dues is the only reason for schools to exist then there are serious questions as to whether the whole system ought to be crushed.

Believe me I have been involved in the shower of lies that our elected officials systematically **** down on us for long enough to know the signs of coordinated attempt to con us into believing that they need to more revenue.

They do not.

The announcements that went out to teachers that they "MAY NOT be rehired" are part of a STATE WIDE orchestrated deadline that is IN ALL TEACHER UNION CONTRACTS. I assure you that there will be far fewer actual crowded classrooms than the numbers of mandatory notifications would suggest.

The four day week is part of larger charade that is being orchestrated and you should count yourself as part of those that have been taken in.


The ONLY crisis is that the idiots that continue to elect liars and cheats to Illinois elective office are finally getting to the point where it is too hard to fleece them to pay for pensions for easy street State workers.

There is no problem in any schools that has managed its finances cannot deal with by simply restructuring their debt. The atmosphere for refunding bonds backed by real estate taxes remains exceptionally attractive and any honest district would only need to make modest adjustment to their total expenditures.

[cubssoxfan]

OK Chet, I'll bite. You are very well informed so I will learn from this. Why is Prospect Heights District 23 having to cut a million this year and looking at additional cuts next year? If so little comes from state funds, is it due to increase in teacher pension obligations? Less property tax revenue? So many districts across the state are having difficulties, it just doesn't appear to be the less optimally run districts like in the past.

I do see past Quinn's smoke screen. The I will lower school funding hostage ploy to increase income tax is very dubious. Where is the slashing of entitlements and wasteful spending FIRST? Hell, if I'm paying 3% more, I would much rather do it via a local referendum so I have a better chance of tracing where it goes and how it's spent.

[cohdane]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Here is the info from one of the largest districts on the North Shore that has any reliance on State money:
Interactive Illinois Report Card

If you add up the local & federal amount you divide that by the State general aid is less than 4%.

Your link is to Evanston schools. As in, the Evanston school district that is cutting $1.6 million from its 2011 budget:

EVANSTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL: $1.6 million in cutbacks unveiled :: News :: PIONEER PRESS :: Evanston Review (http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/news/2094925,evanston-eths-budget-cuts-031110-s1.article - broken link)

Excerpt:

"District 202 learned recently that the state may cut off general state aid payments to well-financed districts that fall outside the state aid formula. That alone would mean a loss of $1.5 million in fiscal 2011.

At the same time, property tax collection rates are down, interest income is negligible and state aid payments are delayed.

Meanwhile, more property owners are appealing their assessments to the Illinois Property Tax Appeals Board and the courts, which may result in future refunds.

Expenditures have continued to rise, largely as a result of negotiated labor agreements. If state funding continues to deteriorate, the district may look to teachers to pick up a larger share of rising health-care costs, said William B. Stafford, District 202's chief financial officer. The request, however, would require the reopening of teacher-contract negotiations."

I'm in District 112. If by "restructuring existing expenditures" you mean cutting staff and programming, then yes, that's what they're doing. They project they'll be doing it for years. You can die by a thousand cuts.

Still stand by my original advice. Anyone shopping schools needs to look under the hood at budget, revenue and reserves.

(And yes, Pat Quinn is a douche for using cheap tricks like bringing education to the front of the guillotine line. That doesn't change the situation the schools are in.)

[chet everett]

Main Entry: 1may
Pronunciation: \ˈmā\
Function: verbal auxiliary
Inflected Form(s): past might \ˈmīt\ present singular & plural may

used to indicate possibility or probability


As I stated, merely refinancing existing debt would enable the State to avoid this.

[Paige65]

Originally Posted by cohdane

Your link is to Evanston schools. As in, the Evanston school district that is cutting $1.6 million from its 2011 budget:

EVANSTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL: $1.6 million in cutbacks unveiled :: News :: PIONEER PRESS :: Evanston Review (http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/news/2094925,evanston-eths-budget-cuts-031110-s1.article - broken link)

Excerpt:

"District 202 learned recently that the state may cut off general state aid payments to well-financed districts that fall outside the state aid formula. That alone would mean a loss of $1.5 million in fiscal 2011.

At the same time, property tax collection rates are down, interest income is negligible and state aid payments are delayed.

Meanwhile, more property owners are appealing their assessments to the Illinois Property Tax Appeals Board and the courts, which may result in future refunds.

Expenditures have continued to rise, largely as a result of negotiated labor agreements. If state funding continues to deteriorate, the district may look to teachers to pick up a larger share of rising health-care costs, said William B. Stafford, District 202's chief financial officer. The request, however, would require the reopening of teacher-contract negotiations."

I'm in District 112. If by "restructuring existing expenditures" you mean cutting staff and programming, then yes, that's what they're doing. They project they'll be doing it for years. You can die by a thousand cuts.

Still stand by my original advice. Anyone shopping schools needs to look under the hood at budget, revenue and reserves.

(And yes, Pat Quinn is a douche for using cheap tricks like bringing education to the front of the guillotine line. That doesn't change the situation the schools are in.)

It sounds like you are familiar with what's going on in 112, but I'm not aware of any programming cuts. Most of the staff cuts are not significant (IMHO). NSSD112 also has operating reserves of about $20 million. You may have already seen the presentation from March 16th, but if you haven't, it's on the website now. The "good news" for me...the district is still going forward with promethean boards in all classrooms by the beginning of the school year. They are now cutting the boards for general use spaces (libraries) and are cutting features on the boards that allow the user to raise or lower them. Some of the personnel cuts are tech coaches/leaders who initially taught the teachers to use the boards. They are no longer necessary. It looks like they are no longer considering raising class sizes, which was on the table and would have affected about 10% of classes across the district. They may still be considering this, but I didn't see it in the presentation. I may have overlooked it. WRT field trips, they have always been pretty much non-existent. One a year, if that. Now, that could be different from school to school, but my DS has been on three field trips in five years.