Illinois Governor Fails to Get a Single Vote for His Education Spending Plan
August 16 2017 - 5:01PM
Dow Jones News
By Quint Forgey
No one in the Illinois House of Representatives voted Wednesday
in support of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's rewrite of a school
funding plan, as Democrats demonstrated the general dissatisfaction
with the governor's proposal.
Earlier this month, Mr. Rauner rejected a funding formula,
passed by both houses of the Democratic-controlled General
Assembly, that allocates state aid to the neediest school districts
first.
After the governor made changes to the legislation, the state
Senate rejected them Sunday, when one Republican lawmaker joined
the chamber's 37 Democrats to achieve the three-fifths majority
necessary to override Mr. Rauner's veto.
To better gauge support for an override attempt in their
chamber, House Speaker Michael Madigan and other Democratic
representatives put Mr. Rauner's changes to Senate Bill 1 in a new
piece of legislation Wednesday and forced a test vote. Sixty
members voted against it, 33 simply voted present and none voted in
support.
In a news conference following the floor action, Mr. Madigan
said the House will vote on overriding the governor's veto next
Wednesday.
Proponents of the original funding model, as outlined in Senate
Bill 1, say it attempts to establish adequate funding levels for
the more than 850 school districts in Illinois by basing them on
students' and institutions' individual needs, taking into account
such factors as districts' property tax contributions to school
funding.
But Mr. Rauner claimed the bill gave preferential treatment to
the hard-pressed Chicago Public Schools district, so he used his
veto powers earlier this month to make sweeping changes to the
measure. That included stripping from Chicago more than $463
million in funding from the original proposal, according to an
analysis released Saturday by the Illinois State Board of
Education.
The governor's revisions eliminated roughly $200 million in
grant money to the Chicago schools and removed $221 million in
extra funds meant to help cover the costs of Chicago's teachers
pension system, though Mr. Rauner said he wanted to reintegrate
that pension money into a separate bill.
The governor's repudiation Wednesday comes just a month after
the legislature overrode his veto to levy a roughly $5 billion
income tax increase and pass the state's first budget in more than
two years.
The $36 billion spending plan passed in July included a funding
increase of roughly $350 million for K-12 schools. Democratic
lawmakers approved Senate Bill 1 in May as a mechanism to
distribute the new money, and waited two months before sending it
to the governor in hopes that negotiators from both parties could
work out a compromise measure the governor would be willing to
sign. But a deal could not be reached, and Mr. Rauner vetoed the
legislation on Aug. 1.
The political brinkmanship resulted in Illinois missing its Aug.
10 deadline for the first round of state aid payments to K-12
schools. The current backlog of vouchers awaiting payment by the
comptroller to school districts totals roughly $1.2 billion, part
of the $4.6 billion backlog of unpaid bills the state racked up
during its record-breaking fiscal impasse.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 16, 2017 17:46 ET (21:46 GMT)
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