North Cook News

State Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines) 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.

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 all 39 north and northwest suburban school districts losing significant state funding. 

That includes the districts represented by Rep. Moylan, which the analysis said would lose $27.5 million in annual state funding if Senate Bill 1 became law.

According to the analysis, Des Plaines CCSD 62 will lose $6.3 million, Maine Township High School District 207 will lose $4 million, East Maine District 63 will lose $5.5 million, CCSD 59 covering Elk Grove Village will lose $8.5 million and Park Ridge CCSD 64 will lose $2.2 million.

To avoid local school cuts, Park Ridge, Des Plaines and Elk Grove Village 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). 

Moylan, curiously, has a petition on his web site imploring constituents to join him in opposing Senate Bill 1, which he suggests will lead to local school funding cuts.

"We, the undersigned, stand with State Rep. Marty Moylan in opposing Senate Bill 1 and the devastation that will be caused to our schools if we cut millions of dollars out of our classrooms," the petition says.

----

Is your school district a winner or a loser?

State Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines) 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 Des Plaines, Elk Grove Village, Park Ridge, Arlington Heights-- fare?

	State Funding
District	Current	Proposed	Difference
Des Plaines CCSD 62	$7,325,935	$1,009,807	-$6,316,128
Arlington Heights CCSD 59	$9,849,807	$1,379,656	-$8,470,151
Maine Township HSD 207	$7,325,935	$1,009,807	-$6,316,128
East Maine District 63	$6,217,595	$757,441	-$5,460,154
Park Ridge CCSD 64	$2,989,909	$711,447	-$2,278,462
TOTAL	$33,709,181	$4,868,158	-$28,841,023

Source: Illinois State Board of Education