Superintendents ask for funds

By Linda Lutton, Staff Writer
Daily Southtown
October 7, 2004

Superintendents from around the state gathered at a crumbling South Side school Wednesday to appeal to members of the General Assembly and the governor to approve more money for the state's school construction grant program when they return to Springfield next month.

Large, thick chips of paint are missing from walls of Bouchet Elementary School in the South Shore community. The school's 1,300 students attend class in four separate buildings because of overcrowding. One building's plastic windows are so cloudy they appear opaque; windows in the main building don't open. A third building was never meant to be a school, and students there sit so close together there is barely room to move between desks and chairs.

Chicago Public School officials say $6 million in repairs budgeted at Bouchet likely will be scrapped unless state legislators approve $550 million for the school construction grant program — $110 million of which is slated to go to Chicago.

Other projects could also go, including several on the Southwest Side that would relieve overcrowding.

"You're talking about one-third of the projects either not getting done or being delayed," said Pedro Martinez, city schools budget director.

Chicago School officials were joined in their appeal to lawmakers by superintendents from suburban, Downstate and Central Illinois districts who were in town for an annual convention of Illinois' largest school districts.

Roberta Berry, superintendent of Crete-Monee School District 201U, wondered what the state could pay for that has a greater impact than schools.

Crete-Monee is constructing what will be the most expensive public building in the village of Monee, a $56 million replacement high school.

Berry said the project has generated jobs, and she is counting on state construction funds to ease the strain on local property taxpayers who approved a $79.4 million bond issue last spring to pay for the new high school, an additional elementary school and an addition to the middle school.

"Where else can you create jobs that benefit children, individual homeowners, the morale of our communities and local economies — all at the same time?" said Berry.

Like other Will County school districts, Crete Monee has seen student enrollment increase in recent years. The district now enrolls about 800 more students than when Berry took over four years ago — some attend class in an 80-year-old building.

The reach of the school construction program, which began in 1997 and has poured $3.1 billion into repairs and new school construction in 497 districts statewide since, makes it unlikely that it will fall victim to budget pressures, said Rep. Renee Kosel (R-Mokena), Republican spokeswoman on the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee.

"It's an extremely popular program that's helped school districts across the state," said Kosel. However,legislators will need to weigh other capital needs as well, said Kosel. She characterized the school construction program as "no-frills."

"This isn't a program that builds Taj Mahals," said Kosel.

The capital budget is usually passed in the spring, but legislators delayed discussions this year after it took them two extra months to agree on the state's operating budget.

In their veto session next month, lawmakers will consider authorizing $2.2 billion in bond sales to fund the school construction program for the next four years. They'll have to appropriate the $550 million each year, according to a spokeswoman for the Illinois Capital Development Board, which awards the grants.

Money for school construction and repair should be important enough that school leaders — who must raise matching funds to pay for projects — shouldn't have to deal with annual uncertainty about whether the state program will be funded, said Michael Jacoby, superintendent of Geneva School District 304 in Kane County.

"This dance we do every two years or so to try to see if the state commissioned enough bonds to fund this program has got to be changed," said Jacoby. "There needs to be consistent funding."