Dept. of Revenue says effort designed to get rid of logjam
By Dee Longfellow
For The Elmhurst Independent
It was at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce Summit held in Springfield on Feb. 8 that some people just heard about the “Grand Bargain” being contemplated by the Illinois legislature.
The Grand Bargain was the first bill introduced in the spring session of the Illinois General Assembly, designed in part to overhaul the funding for Illinois’ public schools. Governor Bruce Rauner appointed a commission which worked over the summer to create the plan and hammer out the details. The plan is a bipartisan package of bills that includes tax increases, spending cuts, new casino licenses and other issues. Committee hearings are reportedly already taking place.
Constance Beard, director of the Illinois Department of Revenue said the Grand Bargain was an effort in the Senate to get rid of the logjam, create jobs and restrain spending.
Previous reforms have failed mainly due to the governor’s and the legislature’s inability to rise above partisan politics. One such proposal in 2015 planned to shift money from wealthier districts to those in poor areas as an alternative to yet more state spending. School funding is just one of Illinois’ financial woes, albeit the most important in many people’s eyes.
State Senator Jason Barickman, a Republican out of Bloomington, was scheduled to speak at the Chamber Summit on Wednesday of last week, but was unable to break away from his duties at the State Capitol. Barickman has led his caucus on the issue.
“If ever there was a time to address it, the time would be now in the context of us coming together in a bipartisan manner on all these other host of issues,” he said. “This one’s so difficult in any normal context that I think it’s critical to incorporate into this larger effort.”
The overall goal of school funding reform, according to Barickman, is to move more state dollars to school districts with greatest needs while also accounting for each individual district’s own individual characteristics, such as the number of special education students or those from low-income households. The current system relies too heavily on local property taxes, Barickman said, adding the reminder that Illinois is among the worst in the nation at providing equitable funding for its various school districts.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle hope that finding a formula to fund Illinois’ schools will be part of Gov. Rauner’s “Grand Bargain.”
