The Illinois Senate today voted 45-11 to override Gov. Blagojevich’s amendatory veto of SB2477, and Sen. Shadid got a round of applause as this was his last public act before leaving office.
SB2477 would give Public School District 150 the ability to use the Public Building Commission to raise funds for school construction. Blagojevich’s veto amended the bill to require a referendum to access PBC funds. If the House follows suit and overrides the Governor’s veto, the bill will become law as is, and the PBC could sell bonds on behalf of the school board for renovation or construction of school buildings without taxpayer approval via referendum.
UPDATE: Today, I’m unveiling a new feature on my blog: audio! Click the play button below to hear the Senate action today on SB2477:
I’m still working out the kinks a bit — for instance, you’ll notice there’s a buzz in the audio; that’s because my current setup for recording is analog and I have a bit of 60-cycle interference. I’ll try to fix that for the future.
My thanks to 1 Pixel Out for the WordPress embedded audio plug-in.
Absolutely taxation without representation — the PBC Commissioners are appointed — so exactly how are these commissioners accountable to the taxpayer/voter/citizen? A travesty!
CJ: What a smashingly great almost real-time feature! Bravo.
Sen Lauzen: Having served as a PBC commissioner in his area with similar demographics as Peoria — nailed it — he states that a recent school referendum in his area did not pass although school referendums have passed when the people were listened to and included in the designing of the school solutions.
The recent referendum in his area did not pass due to ‘very fundamental disconnects with the community — struggling to overcome them’ — sound familiar?
Sen. Lauzen continues that — “I think ..is indicative of some underlying problems that a community ought to support building of schools if the school district is doing what the people want”
Bingo — that is what Peorians have been and continue to ask.
Sen. Shadid’s response — “D150 has an elected school board that is responsible to the taxpayers” — hum that is a real headscratcher — exactly what does that mean? I know that our definitions of responsible must be polar opposites.
CJ: Has D150 ever placed a referendum on a ballot for voter approval?
IMHO — the reason that D150 does not put a referendum on a ballot is that that would mean that they would have to have a definite plan instead of a continuing changing smorgasboard plan just look at what happened with the closure of Blaine-Sumner.
C. J., Karrie, et al.
I understand the hesitancy to support a tax increase when the purpose of those taxes is not clearly outlined beforehand. Sometimes it sounds like D150 is saying “don’t worry your pretty head about the details – just fork over the cash.” Or, regarding the Glen Oak School controversy, the district has outlined their plans but they seem frivolous and wasteful and other options have been explored in only a cursory manner. In either case, your hesitancy and suspicion are certainly justified. You folks know far more about the details of this than I. However, I do want to make a few points as food for thought.
I think you must admit that there is a segment of our population that will reflexively vote against ANY tax increase or bond issue. They don’t care about the details. They don’t care about the necessity. They see the word “tax”, and their limbs spasm and trigger the “no” lever no matter what. I have no idea how big that demographic is, but I would guess that it is a sizable chunk of eligible voters and probably an even larger percentage of regular voters.
Second point – we in the U. S. are some of the most lightly taxed citizens of any developed country. I’m sure that could be a part of our corporate success – that’s not something I can break down and analyze on my own, since I’m not an economist. I wonder about the social costs of that corporate success, however. Is it worth it? It certainly doesn’t “trickle down” as much as some people seem to think.
Sometimes I think a different balance needs to be forged. I certainly think that, in general, public education is SEVERELY underfunded in this country, and in the long run that eats away at our competitiveness internationally. There’s also a nasty, self-defeating anti-intellectual undercurrent in this country – but that’s another story.
I’m not saying that increasing property taxes is the answer. I think using property taxes to fund public education is an inherently elitist method – wealthy neighborhoods have good public schools and schools in poor neighborhoods suffer. That’s certainly true around here – the public school systems with the best reputations are in Morton, Dunlap & Metamora, where all the new McMansions are going up. I’ve been impressed with Pekin District 108 so far, but I know they have their problems.
Take my 3 year old for example. If I was looking for daycare for her, I would look at the caregiver : child ratio as one of the primary factors in determining which daycare to choose. For a 3 year old, the ratio should preferably be 1 : 6 or fewer, and 1 : 8 is really stretching it thin. Can you imagine trying to herd 8 three year olds without help??? Currently, in Pekin’s public preschool, the ratio for my daughter’s 3 year old class is 10 : 1 (twenty kids, two teachers). Unlike a daycare, they’re supposed to be EDUCATING those children, not just babysitting.
It’s not just limited to the preschool, which some may consider “gravy” (but I consider essential). My first grader is in a class with 25 kids and one teacher. The 108 teachers I’ve encountered do a fantastic job given the circumstances, but that just isn’t sustainable. It burns the teachers out, and both the struggling kids and the gifted kids suffer from lack of individual attention.
There’s no way to get around this problem except to hire more teachers, and that’s expensive. However, unless we do it, our kids suffer for it – and then we all suffer in the long run. I just don’t think public education is something we should ever do “on the cheap.”
Knight:
One of the challenges — what is the money being spent on? More dollars for administrators does not solve the education challenges. In other countries — how much money is being spent per child and what are the end results? In America, do we just spend and spend and spend with what results? Did you read the post at Clare’s School Crossing blog at PJStar from the concerned teacher? Those are questions we, as community members need concrete answers to before we put more $ down on the table and come up short. What do you think?