State Rep. Carol Sente (D-Vernon Hills) 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. Carol Sente (D - Vernon Hills), voted to bail out Chicago Public Schools.
| Illinois State House Website
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 Sente include Buffalo Grove, Vernon Hills, Mundelein, North Wheeling and West Lake Forest.
The analysis said the school districts serving them will lose a combined $26.3 million in annual state funding if Senate Bill 1 became law.
According to the analysis, losing school districts include Wheeling Community Consolidated School District 21 (loses $7.4 million), Township High School District 214 (loses $7.1 million), Hawthorn 73 (loses $2.6 million), Kildeer Countryside 96 (loses $1.7 million) and Stevenson High School District 125 (loses $1.6 million).
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).
----
Is your school district a winner or a loser?
State Rep. Carol Sente (D-Vernon Hills) 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 her district-- which includes Buffalo Grove, Vernon Hills, Mundelein, North Wheeling and West Lake Forest-- fare?
| State Funding | |||
| District | Current | Proposed | Difference |
| Aptakisic-Tripp 102 | $1,503,875 | $335,769 | -$1,168,106 |
| Stevenson HSD 125 | $2,235,192 | $679,526 | -$1,555,666 |
| Kildeer Countryside 96 | $2,174,575 | $506,681 | -$1,667,894 |
| Township HSD 214 | $9,237,234 | $2,113,755 | -$7,123,479 |
| Wheeling CCSD 21 | $10,391,842 | $3,016,756 | -$7,375,086 |
| Vernon Hills CHSD 128 | $1,814,824 | $549,033 | -$1,265,791 |
| Hawthorn 73 (Vernon Hills) | $3,274,969 | $662,865 | -$2,612,104 |
| Diamond Lake 76 (Mundelein) | $1,664,527 | $1,423,660 | -$240,867 |
| Fremont 79 (Mundelein) | $1,509,842 | $386,420 | -$1,123,422 |
| Mundelein HSD 120 | $1,735,444 | $385,945 | -$1,349,499 |
| Mundelein 75 | $3,082,462 | $3,407,507 | $325,045 |
| Lake Forest CHSD 115 | $773,984 | $280,392 | -$493,592 |
| Lake Forest 67 | $993,118 | $313,648 | -$679,470 |
| TOTAL | $40,391,888 | $14,061,957 | -$26,329,931 |
Source: Illinois State Board of Education
Alerts Sign-up