By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
Chapin Rose may not always have answers, but he generally has questions.
The Republican state senator from Mahomet was wary about changes to the state school funding formula when they were presented to legislators in November’s veto session.
The updates were being made less than two months after a landmark funding formula had originally been approved and signed into law.
Even if there were aspects that needed tweaking, Rose was among those who wondered, “why not give it a year, thoughtfully analyze it and see where it’s not working instead of this piecemeal thing,” he said.
He was in the minority, so Senate Bill 444 steamrolled through the state House and Senate in November.
Gov. Bruce Rauner issued an amendatory veto, but didn’t have the final say.
On Wednesday, the Senate overrode the veto and the state House did so shortly thereafter. The timing, Rose believes, was not a coincidence.
“They used the day of the State of the State address to override the Governor, so it got lost in the shuffle,” Rose said.
He described the maneuver as “a ruse to confuse.”
There is plenty of good in SB 444, especially for those interested in seeing increased funding for the Chicago Public schools and decreased funding for Downstate districts.
Rose was a dissenter both times it came to a vote.
Of the 50 school districts in Rose’s geographical region, he said, “45 lose money and three gain less than $100.”
According to calculations he cited, the Mahomet-Seymour school district will lose $110,431.83.
“It’s done,” Rose said. “That’s the end of the story. It’s law.”
By contrast, Rose said more than $45 million dollars will be funneled into the Chicago Public School system.
“My area overall lost more than a million bucks (collectively),” Rose said. “People need to know I stood up for our schools.”
The picture, however, is not necessarily as it seems.
While the numbers are accurate, M-S and the other districts will not receive less money than in recent years.
The reformed funding policy included tiered payments — or new money. For M-S, that projection was $371,099.47.
It’s from that amount that the district will see a nearly 30 percent decrease (or $110,431.83 less).
M-S superintendent Lindsey Hall said she has not been informed from the state of an exact amount that the district would receive in tiered payments.
“As for the district losing $110,000, it is difficult to comment on that as we haven’t gotten official numbers as of yet, nor have we made any decisions in terms of how we would best utilize any new funding dollars moving ahead,” Hall said. “This is because school districts do not yet know exact funding numbers.
“If the vote on SB 444 did indeed result in $110,000 less for our school district, that is unfortunate, but as public school districts always do, we’ll continue to provide a high quality education and programming for all of our students.”
Rose has studied the progression of what was first introduced as “a trailer bill.”
Such bills are not necessarily bad, and he said are often required to clean up wording or even punctuation.
“Like replacing a comma with a semicolon,” Rose said. “A trailer bill means a follow-up and is often used to make technical corrections.”
Rose said SB 444 didn’t meet that criteria in his eyes.
“When the Democrats say, ‘It’s no big deal’ and ‘We have to do it immediately,’ and they have no data (on potential impacts), it raises all kinds of red flags for me,” Rose said, “but a majority of the House and Senate bought in.”
Rose didn’t go along with that argument.
“I have the advantage of not believing anybody who shows up in the veto session saying, ‘Trust me,’ and won’t show the data,” he said.
Between that vote in November and Wednesday’s vote, Rose followed up on what he said had been one of the talking points.
“They (the bill sponsors) said without this, the state couldn’t release tiered funding,” Rose said. “I got an email from the State Board and it has nothing to do with that; they can disperse state funding.”
He is disappointed in the outcome of the voting.
“What needed to happen was let it (original plan) operate for a year, let the dust settle, do a comprehensive review and then monkey around with it,” Rose said. “Doing this two months in is not right.”
By speaking out now, Rose said, “part of the goal is to raise awareness. People need to remember who stood up for the local school districts and who did not.”
Senate Bill 444 made technical changes to the new evidence-based school funding law (Senate Bill 1947) that dealt with out how Equalized Assessed Valuation (EAV) is calculated in the formula. Those changes account for why some districts are now projected to receive less tiered funding.
Hall is appreciative of Rose’s effort.
“The Mahomet-Seymour Schools are incredibly fortunate to have Senator Chapin Rose strongly advocating for us and the other public school districts in his legislative district,” Hall said. “And, as his home district, we feel additionally fortunate to be able to work closely with him on legislative matters.”
The statistical data quoted by Rose was prepared by the State Funding and Forecasting Staff, in November 2017, and altered by the Senate GOP staff, last month. The numbers reflect a simulation based on prior-year data.
Of the districts that Rose represents, only Decatur ($612,306.21) is projected to lose more ‘new’ tiered money than M-S.
The estimated reductions for other area districts include: Champaign ($29,896.40); Fisher ($4,212.25); Urbana ($22,849.96) and Villa Grove ($48.742.35). Monticello stands to gain $46.10 and the Tolono Unity district will see an increase of $18,690.36.
