State Rep. Scott Drury (D-Highwood) voted Wednesday night to bail out Chicago Public Schools (CPS), shifting state school funding from suburban districts.
Senate Bill 1, which passed 60-52 on partisan lines, would send at least $400 million more per year to CPS and take responsibility for funding its insolvent teachers' pension fund.
That fund, as reported by Chicago City Wire last week, is nearly $10 billion in the hole and is expected to run dry early next decade.
Illinois State House Rep. Scott Drury (D-Highwood)
Most Senate and House members voted on the funding distribution measure without knowing how their local school districts would be impacted.
By design, the bill's backers purposely avoided producing a district-by-district analysis ahead of the votes, for fear of losing support from legislators whose schools stood to lose out.
But context clues-- including the strong backing of pro-CPS legislators and lobbyists-- served as plenty of warning for most of them.
The last complete analysis of Senate Bill 1, produced last summer, showed 37 of 45 Lake County school districts losing significant state funding.
Communities represented by Drury include Highland Park, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, Bannockburn, Deerfield and Northern Northbrook.
The analysis said the school districts serving them will lose a combined $18.5 million in annual state funding if Senate Bill 1 became law.
According to the analysis, losing school districts include North Shore 112 in Highland Park (loses $12.2 million), Highland Park Township High School District 113 (loses $1.1 million), Deerfield 109 (loses $1.3 million), Lake Forest 67 (loses $669,470) and Northbrook 28 (loses $615,849).
To avoid local school cuts, communities would have to raise property taxes to replace those state dollars.
Bill supporters insisted that the bill analysis was incorrect because they had subsequently added a "hold harmless" provision, which would, at least temporarily, minimize the dramatic cuts to suburban districts.
But that provision also assumed-- and required-- a massive increase in state funding to schools, which is next to impossible given the state's precarious financial situation.
Critics described the concept as spurious.
"(Senate Bill 1) is a disaster and moreover, it is deceptive," said State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton).
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Is your school district a winner or a loser?
State Rep. Scott Drury (D-Highwood) voted Wednesday for a measure that would redistribute the state's school funding dollars, shifting money from suburban districts to Chicago.
How would schools in his district-- which includes Highland Park, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, Bannockburn, Deerfield and Northern Northbrook-- fare?
| State Funding | |||
| District | Current | Proposed | Difference |
| North Shore 112 (Highland Park) | $14,694,627 | $2,452,048 | -$12,242,579 |
| Township HSD 113 (Highland Park) | $1,731,753 | $605,272 | -$1,126,481 |
| Lake Forest HSD 115 | $773,984 | $280,392 | -$493,592 |
| Lake Forest 67 | $993,118 | $323,648 | -$669,470 |
| Lake Bluff 65 | $523,322 | $141,719 | -$381,603 |
| Rondout 72 | $85,321 | $26,119 | -$59,202 |
| Bannockburn 106 | $130,976 | $32,755 | -$98,221 |
| Deerfield 109 | $1,782,618 | $500,145 | -$1,282,473 |
| Northbrook 27 | $705,256 | $188,957 | -$516,299 |
| Northbrook 28 | $885,839 | $269,990 | -$615,849 |
| Northbrook/Glenview 30 | $637,990 | $189,454 | -$448,536 |
| West Northfield 31 (Northbrook) | $679,767 | $154,567 | -$525,200 |
| TOTAL | $23,624,571 | $5,165,066 | -$18,459,505 |
Source: Illinois State Board of Education
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