McHenry Times

Rep. Steven Reick (R-Woodstock) was not pleased Monday with 852 school districts having to wait for legislative approval to receive up to $350 million in funding for the fiscal school year.

Discussing the amendatory veto on SB444, a bill to fund 852 school districts vetoed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, Reick questioned Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Chief Financial Officer Robert Wolfe at length on why, aside from the veto, there is a funding holdup.

“So even if we override the veto of SB444 tomorrow you are still not going to be ready to do your final calculations to distribute money this school year, is that what I am hearing?” Reick asked at the House Appropriations Elementary & Secondary Education Committee hearing Monday.

According to Wolfe, it is imperative that numbers are “clean” so adequacy target calculations are correct to determine what schools are in most need of funding. Evidence-based funding is then based on a series of tests that identify the 97 school districts' figures in question that will inevitably determine the regions' funding for fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

Wolfe added there is one particular bill pending that would be of issue in addition to SB444.

“You say you have trailer bills coming along that will affect the distribution of the funding,” Reick said. “Is 444 going to be the only bill right now that will hold up the distribution as we are talking now, or can these types of things be held off until the next funding year for purposes of getting this money out the door.”

“There is a language specifically called normal curve equivalent,” Wolfe said. “All the models were based on a cumulative distribution and we need language changes to comport with how the calculations were done throughout all the models.”

Reick was notably displeased.

“My problem is I don’t want to have us sitting here in three months saying ‘well we have this other bill that has to be rammed through ... in order to get this thing done,” Reick said. “So we could be even further down the road to get distribution money by having to resolve this issue, is that what you are saying?”

“That is what you are hearing without other changes,” Wolfe said, adding several other issues are likely to arise in the next couple of years as well.

“As we have heard in the previous panel, we are staring down the barrel of not getting any new funding distributed this school year if we just kind of muddle along here with new issues,” Reick said.