Much of the attention on public education in the Missouri portion of the St. Louis region centers on the inter-district transfer program involving unaccredited school districts.
On the east bank of the Mississippi River, Illinois school districts have a slightly different urgency, based more on finances than accreditation. Many of them are uncertain if they will survive due to continued budget shortfalls. One, the Grant School District in Fairview Heights, Ill., might “close” if a tax increase is not approved in March.
Leaders of Grant School District, also known as District 110, propose dissolution if that tax-increase proposal fails. That means the district’s boundaries and organizational structure would dissolve and its schools would be consolidated with surrounding districts, even though those districts thus far have opposed the idea. District 110 would not be the first to follow this path, as Illinois currently has 863 school districts, down from 891 a year ago.
The Belleville News–Democrat called even 863 school districts a “ridiculously high number” and recommended more consolidations to save money and thereby enable schools to offer more and better services and academic programs. That said, it’s been more than 50 years since a St. Clair County school district has been dissolved. Grant is an elementary-school district, with only 720 students.
Two previous tax increase proposals, in April of this year and in 2011, were rejected in District 101, though the most recent one failed by 68 votes.
Numerous school districts in Illinois have cut back on sports, the arts, music, and extracurricular activities due to shrinking budgets. On Octobrt 23, the Illinois Legislature denied a request by O’Fallon District 90 for a waiver from the requirement to offer physical-education classes in its elementary schools. Those classes cost the district $135,987 in the previous school year, officials said.
The legislature approved two measures last week that allowed school districts in Lebanon, Ill. and Chester, Ill. to increase their debt limits, so they could continue plans to build new schools.
Andy Theising, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, is not surprised that Illinois school districts turn to the state at times of financial trouble. The state has broad and deep budget problems, and it hasn't kept its commitment to fund public education, he says.
“Illinois is in this unfortunate position where it is experiencing high and increasing costs for current operations, while revenues are still down from the bad economy,” Theising says. “It also has to pay the consequences for bad decisions a decade ago, when politicians were giving away nice retirement benefits to people instead of raising their salaries.”
Those commitments have cut into what the state can do, according to Theising. “There were a lot of promises made for nice retirement packages. Well, guess what? We have to pay for those retirements now,” he says. “That becomes an added burden on the state.”
The question comes down to the state’s funding formula for public education and whether it can, or will, fund it at 100 percent. In recent years, the state has been from five to 10 percent short of that goal, which has translated to less state money for schools. “When the state cuts back, there is not a lot of capacity for school districts to squeeze any more money out of the local population,” Theising says.
Some districts are more reliant on state and federal funds than other districts. East St. Louis schools, for instance, get 93 percent of their funding from state and federal sources, while other districts in the region, such as Belleville, Ill., get close to 50 percent, Theising says. “East St. Louis has fewer choices, because it is so reliant on external funding,” he adds. Poor districts with low property values are doubly troubled.
This year 45 districts are on the state’s “financial watch list,” meaning they are the districts with the most financial difficulty. Seven of those districts are in St. Clair County, three are in Madison County, three are in Cook County, and the 32 are spread across 27 other Illinois counties.
The anti-tax sentiment in Missouri is shared by Southern Illinois, Theising says. “Missouri is a low-tax state, and Southern Illinois has a lot of that same political culture that St. Louis and the eastern part of Missouri has—very much an effort to keep taxes low," he says. "Voters in Missouri don’t vote to tax themselves often, and we see that in Southern Illinois too. I’m not surprised that the Grant School District has put out a bond issue, and it’s failed three times.”
What is surprising to Theising is that the idea for dissolution of a government unit would come from within, not from external critics. “I was surprised that the district said it would follow the dissolution path because, as we know, governments don’t usually go away. Here’s a unit of government that says, 'We are going to fold if we don’t get more money.' It seems unusual that a government would suggest going away.”
