Focus 580; A+ Illinois: A Campaign To Provide Quality Education

Good morning this is focused on a video morning telephone talk show. My name is Jack Brighton. Glad you could listen today. Nearly everyone looking at the condition of Illinois schools would agree they are in the midst of a funding crisis. At least 80 percent of public school districts in the state are facing deficit budgets and more than a third face major red ink. The Illinois state constitution assigns the state primary responsibility for financing the system of public education. And that's a quote. But in reality the state pays only about 36 percent of school expenses today a percentage that has been declining over the recent years. During this hour focus 580 will be talking about the funding picture for Illinois public schools with members of a new campaign called A-plus Illinois Plus Illinois hoping to mobilize enough political support to change how Illinois education is financed in part which was the name of their previous campaign. Along these lines in part by reducing reliance on local property taxes. We'll talk about that and the other parts of the plan during this hour we have with us three guests here in the studio Gene Amberg is the superintendent of Urbana school number one 16. Lynn Werfel is among

other things he's on the Paul Parklane College Board of Trustees He's the vice chairman of the college Sure. Board of Trustees at Parkland. He's also on the on a community college trustees in the Illinois community college board in the champagne County Farm Bureau and he chairs the school subcommittee of the champagne County Farm Bureau. Also Dan is very clear he is a director of news and information for the only Farm Bureau and also director information for A-plus Illinois. We will talk with them during this hour. And we also welcome your questions and comments on the topic of school funding in Illinois. The phone number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line. Anywhere you hear us around the state of Illinois actually anywhere in the continental U.S. if you're listening online you can use that toll free number 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Well gentlemen good morning and thanks for being here. Good morning. Morning. Just to start with. Could someone please tell us a little bit more about A-plus Illinois how it got started who was involved and so forth and maybe a dentist worker you could start with that.

Sure a big lead to a plus Illinois is actually the third coalition in the last 16 years that's attempted to solve this problem. This particular one started last winter mostly by several organizations in Chicago. And it's included a broad spectrum of groups of civic interest groups. I'm with the Illinois Farm Bureau Of course there are members of the Chicago Urban League the Illinois Education Association voices for Illinois children. The Metropolitan Planning Commission. Those are some of the larger member organizations that belong. And then we have more than a hundred community type organizations of which one exists here in Champagne Urbana area and those are very important to this coalition because it's important that we show that there is widespread grassroots interest in

changing the way we fund education in Illinois. And what exactly are you what kind of activities is a plus ongoing gaged And is it a lobbying effort what exactly are you well like this activity at talking on the radio and getting people who are concerned about education to know that there is a unified statewide effort in place to try to get a message to the legislature that we need to change the way we fund education in Illinois. There are activities taking legislators to school. I had one of those in in Champagne Urbana we've had them in several other cities where we try to show members of the legislature that. What the situation is with local schools funding issues especially. We do editorial board meetings. We've done just a lot of public outreach in attempts to get people to get on to the website for a plus Illinois which is a plus

Illinois one word a PLL us Illinois dot org and they can find out all about the organization at that point if they're concerned about education funding and volunteer to help us out. Very good. Well let's talk about the situation of education funding in Illinois and why you are attempting to address it. And for this maybe you could turn first to Gina Hamburg attend a school for for District 1 16th and ask the question we often ask on this program how bad is it. Well Jack that first of all thanks for the invitation to speak today but you know the issues of adequate funding and school quality are are really intercollegiate connected and where one lives in Illinois should not determine the quality of the public education that that child receives and that's unfortunately what's occurring in Illinois. We have long believed that in horse man or father of public education who said that you know education can be the great equalizer.

Well unfortunately for many of the 2 million school children in Illinois that is not the norm because quality of education available to them is too closely linked to the wealth of one's community. So it can be bad in I can give you specific examples in Urbana for example the the greatest flaw in funding for us is through real estate taxes is that we have a shrinking tax base. It's an issue of land that's owned by tax exempt groups in Urbana and as much as we love the University of Illinois it's a wonderful resource to us it does have some drawbacks and that and coupled with a couple major hospitals a federal courthouse and numerous other court buildings. That have expanded over the last number of years. They've really taken a large chunk of the tax base from from our school system and so that's that's part of the problem how bad it is you've referred to can that all be attributed to poor management practices or outrageous labor demands that over 80

percent of the nearly 900 school districts that are in the state of Illinois are experience some financial trouble. Tex. Excuse me. Deficit spending kind of trouble so in our own particular area we are we're strange bedfellows here at the table I think in lots of ways because tax caps really affect us as well. And over the past number of years since 1996 when they were passed in this county the effective has been a loss of nearly 2 to 3 million dollars from our particular school district so lots of issues. It is. It is not good. And with the state's structural deficit continues to increase. We now is the time to do something about this. You know I know that a lot of you know some people may feel that you know we've heard for years that the schools need more money that you know the funding for education has always been a problem you know it or maybe it seems like it's always been a problem. And I guess the question is.

You know in recent years you mention that has the tax caps passed in Champaign County 1986 and many other counties had those in place in the years preceding 1996. You know has it in fact gotten that much worse in recent years. Well in our particular school district I think that that it has. We go in cycles in education and I were talking earlier and he's been a long board member on a local school district for years and we do well for a few years and then we go into the dumper a little bit and it's so cyclical and we need to fix this I think that this state needs to fix their tax structure in order to create an adequate reliable and sustainable revenue source. And so yeah it's really bad and I don't think it's going to get any better because the economy in the country and in our state is doesn't seem to be as well. Well let's turn now to a little Werfel and you have a number of roles including a park in

college in the only community college trustees association et cetera. And I know you've been involved in this for a long time. Three you know what could you add in terms of you know your perspective on you know what the nature of the problem is and what the effort needs whatever needs to be made to address it. Well there is a long history of inadequate funding. My great grandfather was on the original school board for the one room school just down the road from the house I live in now. And my grandmother told the story of my grandfather and the other director standing in a dirt road in front of our house yelling at each other. They were both so upset over the funding for that one room school. And so in some ways we haven't changed. There's a tremendous appetite for dollars to educate children. And many people have the attitude that that background is where we are now. That's not right. We have a crisis that is different. And then historical

data in the number of school districts that have deficit funded for the last three years is enormous. The number of school districts that are right at bankruptcy's door is about 20. If the current situation is at a crisis level the future looks grim and something has to give. Historically the the basis for school funding was pretty much property taxes. When that system was developed pretty much everything was visible property so it was an excellent way to assess wealth and and somewhat fairly or as best possible to divide up the costs of education amongst taxpayers. Today property is not the vehicle it used to be. It's still an important part of the whole package but relying on property for the major portion of education funding is a disaster and the data shows what kind of disaster it is.

OK let's talk about then the ideas that are on the table to address the funding imbalance. And as I understand it the reliance on property taxes creates this imbalance between wealthy import districts and doesn't adequately fund education. The state is supposed to provide the preponderance of funding for schools that I guess numerically that would that would mean at least 51 percent. But the idea is to lower property taxes and raise and income taxes is that is that accurate. That's the major two major pieces that's being looked at here. There are some other portions too. One of the the vehicle bills that is being used to discuss this whole issue House bill 750 right. But those are the two major portions the third segment of that really is is a broadening of the sales tax base to include more and more things under sales taxes. And if you look at our current

economy most people who study this have come to the conclusion that that that service in the service segment of our economy is the big section now and it's very dynamic. Property does not fit into that very well at all. So any kind of a long term sustainable support of school systems needs to recognize the change in wealth in America today and the change in the economy the way that this sales tax are generated based on the nature of work and yet cetera Jack I might add there's a House bill 750 is an initiative that is as Lynn said a vehicle for us to resume the discussion that gets you know tabled year after year with the legislation we now through Representative Meeks in Chicago who is an independent there. There is this bill that's sponsored by I think about 13 Rick Winkle here in Champaign Urbana area is also one of the

major sponsors of the bill. And I think it's important too to know that it's a vehicle to help us resume the discussion we have been talking about these kinds of issues for decades. In Illinois has the dubious distinction of having the widest achievement gap between poor and non-poor students in the in the country. And we've gotten and we're the only school we're the only state in the union has gotten an F for school financing by many publications and it's time to do some comprehensive restructuring. OK let me just reintroduce our guest We're talking this morning with members of the A-plus campaign as a campaign to reform education funding in Illinois. Our guests are Jean Amberg whose voice you just heard he's the superintendent for Banna school district 116. Lynn woful who is involved in a lot of things including the Parkland College Board of Trustees and the champagne County Farm Bureau and also Dennis furcula who's director of news information for the Illinois farm bureau and they're all members of the A-plus only campaign. We do have one caller waiting and we will

talk with them. Let me also mention the phone numbers if others would like to join us. The number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free anywhere else you hear us 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have someone in Savoy on line number one. Good morning. Hello good morning. Make you right. I just want to say I really agree with what's being talked about in terms of a lot of inequity between districts you know rich and poor. One thing I've been curious about is like what are local schools. And I don't know if you have these kinds of numbers available but say a local district. What is the amount of that is be in spent per pupil in a given district say in our area. Do you happen to have anything like that. OK Jean Amber you know I can tell you exactly how much we spend in Vienna. And it's seventy two hundred four dollars per per student. That's quite. It's a little bit of the average in

Illinois as you have heard us. The differences are huge in per capita spending across school districts in our state we go as low as about 40 $500 or so in that range down in some of our poorer counties and St. Louis and those areas to as high as over $18000 that spent annually on a youngster. 18000 up and some of the collar counties and they'll be spending you know a huge amount and we're not talking about public schools versus private schools here as you write and we're talking about public schools so for some schools to have like any St. Louis have lead paint peeling from ceilings that were kids go to school versus kids who have pools in gymnastic equipment and all those great things so champagne would spend just a little less than that I think per pupil in the high $6000 range in the home and so many others are in that area as well.

Well you know I don't think I was noticing the other day is you know the amount like my own paycheck you know the the amount that I pay in state income tax I was kind of like a man I was like. A third of what I pay federally it seemed like and I was thinking you know I'd rather have my money you know a stand here in Illinois more than going to the federal government. You know when I hear reports of them building schools in Iraq I'm for education everywhere but as you're talking about our schools and hearing reports you know even as close as like Danville schools Someone was telling me aren't severe you know crisis and some of their facilities so well the income tax that you refer to Illinois still is one of the lowest income tax states in the nation. So even if we rose a little bit we would still be pretty far down there. OK well thank you very much. Thanks for the call. I have a number of questions just a follow up you know we mentioned at the outset the only state constitutional

mandates the state support the preponderance or the majority are the be the primary source of education funding I think is a phrase I have haven't there been some court cases that sort of looked at the. The fact that the Illinois state legislature is not essentially doing that. Well as a matter of fact there have been two Supreme Court cases I couldn't can't cite them and tell you all of the details but yes we have had three blue ribbon panels that have been appointed by different governors in this state over the last couple of decades we've had two Supreme Court cases and we've had a number of in initiatives that have looked at this. Well another issue that I'll raise is the No Child Left Behind Act the federal law that essentially requires schools to meet certain achievement standards and I know GM burger dealing with that in the Urbana school district. You know it is something that certainly looking at the

picture in Illinois It looks like about maybe a third of Illinois schools are failing to meet the requirements of the act. And I guess is that is that related to funding directly or is there are there other issues that as a stew superintendent you're looking at as well. It's very closely related to funding school achievement of course is also highly correlated to home and family factors. When you look at adequate housing health care for children work for their parents these things are all very very important so the need for early childhood for afterschool programs for special education for social emotional learning kinds of activities is imperative there. They're very tied. The physical problems extend far beyond in Illinois the districts in poverty and poverty poor areas. There there hit us all all of the school systems and No Child Left Behind is no one no one of us wants to leave any child behind.

But these are federal legislation that we are all working with in every school district. Turning to two very clear as representative the on my farm bureau I guess I'm curious about how your interest in the issue of education funding and obviously you know we all care about education but I wonder you know why in particular the Farm Bureau has always been over the years so interested in this particular issue. Well part of the reason is that we have so many people on school boards. There are 100 or so districts around the state. We we probably have perhaps as many as a thousand members who are on school boards they tend to be like Len serves on the school board in the past tend to be very concerned about education and then the in the 80s it became obvious to them that there was just not enough wealth to be generated from the property tax to keep a good school system in place for their children and their grandchildren. We had declines in the 80s not just in

farm land prices. But in mines and factories and other tangible wealth downstate and I think that I think that rural people saw this first. Urban folks also saw it who were concerned about education. Now the suburbs of seeing the same kinds of problem. But we were sort of the shock troops if you will and sell since we respond to the concerns of our farmer members they were telling us this is the issue back in the mid 80s. This is the issue that we have to do something about. And it's primarily it was viewed as an education issue. It was an adequacy equity accountability issue. And they infuse that into our policy. And we've been working on it ever since and we've tried hard we've been involved in all three of the major efforts to change the system. And Len was there at the beginning he said a lot of experience with this.

I think it's it's interesting to look back a little bit from the very very beginning here in central Illinois the folks who settled here to farm the land brought with them the idea that education was very important. So over the over the last hundred fifty years farmers have been very involved in education and caring for their schools. Farm families typically have a number of children and so when those children go to school it's natural for the farm families to be involved in their education. The other side of that equation really is that property taxes property taxes are a very serious issue for farm families. It's either paid by the farm owner or if he's a farmer or an indication rant or in the open the leasing agreements that the farmers have with the farm owners. So the real state property taxes have always been a very big concern for

farm people in the long run. I think you know my Farm Bureau has recognized that it's important for all the children in Illinois to have a good education. As Jeanne mentioned it's a great equalizer. And that's been true in my own family with my father. Like my grandfather I think had a sixth grade education. My father graduated from the UI and taught agriculture for a while and my children have all graduated from college so the involvement in our lives of education and this is just a big part of what we're about. I remember back in the early 1980s when interest rates were you know 15 to 17 percent and there was a there was a farm crisis largely caused by the decline in the high interest rates and then it also hit the value of farm land prices for farmland actually declined

dramatically during the early 80s. And that would have hit rules school districts very hard in because of the tax base so dependent upon the property taxes and all the farm land in those areas. So you know that was one element of it but then subsequent to that the economy started to turn around and farmland values went from a very very low point to two. Let's say a very much higher point and in many cases the property taxes rose and became a real problem for farmers I mean obviously you know it might have been Might it help the real school districts but it's a double edged sword. Right. I suppose Governor Ogilvy in effect rescued our schools back then in the 80s because of the of the beginning of the state income tax. Had we not had the new money the infusion of money from the state income tax the school districts would have had much more financial difficulty than they did in the current method of

assessing farmland. It is really a system of capitalization of rant. And if we have to have property taxes it's about as fair a way as trying to assess value to farmland as we could have. But it's not farmland or other property. Just don't respond to the economy the way income tax sales tax and other taxes like that work. We have another call to talk with some clued in our conversation we're little pastor mid-point we're talking about the A-plus Illinois campaign a campaign to reform education funding in Illinois and we have three guest Gene Amberg a superintendent urban school one 16 Lynn war fal whose voice you just heard he's on the Paula Parklane College Board of Trustees among other things and very clear who's a director of news and information for the only farm bureau. And we welcome your calls as well if you'd like to join us the number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free elsewhere. 800 to 2 2 9 4

5 5. Caller online number 1. Good morning. I have an idea I'd like to talk about it with the sales tax when you buy something you enter your zip code and a portion of the sales tax goes back to the taxing bodies for your zip code or the school district to use it. A lot in our area we've got competition between Champaign-Urbana that's made a lot of by people who write in to our local paper but they don't talk about the fact that places like champagne and. And I'm sure that's the same thing is true when you have other larger cities where the big box stores tend to locate you have the taxes that are sucked up by these these entities. Please cover my landlady's and farm school districts or old school districts suffer even more than the NSM like Urbana to

so that's one thought but then they might have the other question is how are you going to counter the thing that happens whenever anybody tries to change the taxes and that is you have people saying oh you're a tax and spend liberals do that know your tax and spend liberal. So we don't have. That seems to be something that we defeat like elected officials IME. If you raise taxes you're a bad guy there's no discourse in our country about contributing to the community. There's no discourse about saying well we your kids may be out of school now but if you want to be supported with Social Security you better have an educated workforce earning the money to put in Social Security to pay for for you. We have to have a workforce that will attract industry an educated workforce. If you don't want people to be a will for

welfare you have to have next to it work for it. And things are more complicated than they used to be 50 70 years ago in terms of the need for schooling we don't. How are we going to get that message across how we're going to change people's minds so they don't just use any politician who votes for your proposal as a somebody who raises taxes instead of. That you know greek Well you know it's a very cogent remarks and right on target. You know we're looking at this one house bill some 50 and no legislation is perfect and we got an earful the other day on a panel over at Parkland College and it was kind of pessimistic because the legislators were saying just basically the same things you were this is going to be an uphill battle but we're going to have to make tradeoffs here we're going to have to reform taxation we're going to have to reform the way schools are funded. And you know it's a it's a known fact that states that spend more on public education spend more on public education are also states that have the best

economic stability and development. So this is a this is a notion that's going to serve to stimulate our overall economy in our area. I'll have a defilement pass the tax question off to somebody else. Sales Tax one of the really fine legislators from this area was Helen Satterthwaite who became an expert in school issues and was one of the best legislators in the State Government on those issues. I was working a lot with all my farm bureau at the time on this cheap program. When Helen was a legislator and on one of those trips to Springfield I had learned just enough to realize that this whole thing is impossible. Nothing really can happen because as the collar mentioned it takes legislators with a lot of courage. They have to to bypass the idea that their most important thing is to be re-elected. Really the most important thing is to do the right thing.

You have to study the issues and make a good informed decision and do the right thing. But actually our system does work and it works through people like the collar getting involved and shaking and rattling the legislators to the point that they they have the courage to step forward and make progress. I am very impressed with the the hearings that the Senate has been conducting. SENATOR MEG Well Deval Yeah. One of the leading senators in the in our state Senate right now Senator James Meeks from Chicago who is one of the chief sponsors of this bill. Those guys are willing to step forward and put themselves on the line and say we really do need to do something now let's talk about this in a serious way and let's do it. Congress just look at the national debate. Look everywhere and

all you hear is people being attacked for wanting to raise taxes. Look at the presidential race. BUSH I'm cutting taxes folks. It just seems like we're good at driving ourselves into bankruptcy by not paying for built things that need to be paid for now and raising our taxes and selling up to the bar and say OK I'm going to pay for this and let's contribute and people who benefited the most should be contributing more. Thanks a bunch. Thanks for the call Dennis did you want to. Yeah the caller mentioned tax and spend liberals work for Farm Bureau so I'm not sure I even know one vet. But all kidding aside. Two comments from an old conservative named Earl Butz come to mind one is there's no such thing as a free lunch and the second is you get what you pay for and I think this is true right now in education. I live in Normal Illinois. I'm. There are probably a couple hundred families in my.

In my area who are from India they're all over here working on at mostly at State Farm in the technology areas. And the thing they've all got in common is they had first class educations and if my kids are going to compete in the world they're going to have to get the same kind of educations that those folks get. Well that's an interesting point because especially we're seeing outsourcing of so much labor because of this wonderful technology we have that information technology provided by the Internet. You know we can simply hire somebody in India you know to do the programming that we formerly had somebody locally. Well yeah and I would say that the people I know who work in this industry are doing it because they're willing to accept low wages. They're doing it because they're qualified to do it. They had good educations and they're here. And so you know and they got their education somewhere somewhere else. This is a global economy. We have to be able to compete in that economy.

And I can tell you as an educator Education Research tells us over and over again that the teacher is the key to quality education it's not that box or it's not that hardware or software it's that living breathing human being who has relationships with each and each one of their students that makes a difference that is the motivator for children to learn so. I think if we can't get our funding situation the challenge will be to maintain quality education I think it's going to suffer. We have to be very competitive in attract quality teachers to every school district in our state. And this is very tough. And without adequate funding for salaries and benefits we're not going to be able to do it in our children going to pay the price. So I would concur but you know the technology is great but that human breathing person is what our children need. This is a tax increased in some ways. It's a tax decrease and actually if you study the whole bill what this bill would do is

really fit the saddle to the horse in a much better way so that the burden becomes more bearable for all of those folks who are really physically challenged. And it it does it without adding a tremendous burden to those who are fiscally very blessed. So it's a good. Type of thing to look at in the fine points there needs to be some discussion particularly in the sales tax area. But overall the parts of this bill are really good parts and the decrease in property taxes is a very important part of it. We're talking about the A-plus Illinois campaign a campaign to reform education funding in Illinois and we have three guests here in the studio and we have a caller waiting patiently We'll go next to someone on a car phone one number four. Good morning. Yeah. Can you hear me OK. Sure. Yeah yeah I'm enjoying the conversation. I have kind of a unique perspective and an observation. My wife and I

moved down to a small essential and only town about eight years ago from Chicago and I when I went to high school in the 70s I went to a private high school is 300 bucks a year. Now it's over 6000. And we appreciate being able to take care of take advantage of the public school system here but it's really very economically. Hurting any business is a kind of closed up dried up. They've asked me to be on the school board which I appreciate the opportunity but with businesses closing up and homes for sale. You know I just I just don't know where the property tax the money at the increase is going to come from it's kind of a scary situation here for the kids at the high school or on the free lunch program and dad you need to have them cut any programs you want to keep your school system good and viable but you know not the economic development it's just you know I stuck it in the blood out of a lot of candidates. I know we're not unique I mean we're

125 miles south of Chicago it's a small town of 6000 and I'm sure a lot of communities are hurting but I. I think you or your pal is exactly right. They need to wake up the legislature and do something before you know the last one out of town turn off the lights and I just I would appreciate their comments on that. OK one more thing I would really appreciate your serious consideration of serving on a school board and getting active in in this issue because it's people just like you who really need to step forward and having been a veteran of 10 years on our school board. You don't need to think about it as a lifetime job but something that you can take a turn at and do your part. I think that's very important. A caller is really accurate that our current funding method is badly broken in like anything in our society something that's bad or broken if we don't fix it now the problem's only going to worsen for us all and I think this is the time. Now is the time to do something

historic. It's very easy to for elected officials I think to say that they're for education. It's much more difficult to say in an act you know fair and can and you know sustainable way to reach out to fund schools over time and I think that's what we're asking them to do. I don't want to scare the caller. This is Dennis again but I want tell a little story. This conversation started out with Jack asking well how bad is it and actually I think with schools it's not like a train wreck. It's more like a big ship going down slowly and the big ship that I went to high school at finally sunk this past year. I grew up in a little town of Sion on Northern McLean County. My great great grandfather came there in 1854. My grandfather went to the first consolidated high school where he graduated from and my dad graduated from the same school came down here to the University of Illinois and became a

bronze tablet scholar. The system was good enough to keep cranking out burglars who knew how to go to college. They put me into the system at the U of I in 1967. Along with five of my classmates in a class in a class of 39 in the 70s and 80s things started going wrong for the school district. It was on the financial watch list several years and what happened to it was the better students the parents the better students started sending them elsewhere. My nephew graduated this last year in a class of 19. None of them applied to the 0 5. Four of them applied to Illinois State University. None of them qualified to get in. That's how much decline took place in that small school now. You can say truthfully there were some bad decisions about not trying to merge earlier and things like that. The school system was dissolved it was merged with Perri Central which is to the east. But

this took place over a long period of time it wasn't you know a crisis or something that happens almost without X any expectation. But school problems affect a community is just a downward spiral and it takes a long time but you eventually get a very bad place and the over reliance on property tax was a part a key part of the problem the school system encountered. Well let me ask you this. You know we've we've been talking about this idea of changing the balance of taxation away from property taxes and toward income taxes and perhaps sales taxes. That's a separate issue that I want to talk about in a minute but the idea of reducing property taxes and increasing the reliance on on income taxes in particular has been on the table a number of times as as Jeanne Amberg mentioned there's been three blue ribbon panels there been many people have who have been proposing this very idea for a very long time. There was the

changing health Illinois education his finance campaign the chief campaign that when woful mentioned that I remember quite well. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't recall hearing any one say this is a bad idea. On the basis of its merits that you know this notion of reducing property taxes increasing income taxes is you know as opposed to it being a tax increase it's a tax adjustment I think. You know there's a reasonable argument for that that I have yet to hear an opposing argument and if a caller would like to raise it that's great but I guess I'm asking you have you run into people who say this is wrong this is a bad idea. Certainly we have we. I don't know I want your callers to realize that there is a center for tax and budget accountability in Chicago. A fellow named Ralph marketeer e who has been traveling around the state of Illinois who knows this stuff really well and has a very strong proponent of House Bill 750.

But there are a lots of roadblocks. This is going to be an uphill climb for as we think at the time is now but we think that the city of Chicago will be opposed for some reasons that some of the wealthier school districts are going to be opposed. But you know Urbana for example hospitals 7:50 if it were enacted there'd be an average savings per home where the average assessed valuation and taken that into consideration in Urbana would be almost 11 percent. If this were in there be three hundred twenty two dollars a year. The average savings per acre in this area would be almost 14 percent at two dollars and 55 cents per acre. So there would be an increase of foundation level funding. There would be a less reliability on local taxes right now in Urbana we rely 55 percent of our revenue comes from the local sources from our taxpayers. If the House bill some 50 were

able to be successful it would be closer to 40 percent so that reliability on property tax would be lessened. OK. House Bill 750 does raise the state's portion to from 36 percent to 51 percent. It raises the foundation level which is currently under $5000 to just under $6000. And that raising that foundation level is so crucial for the small districts like the previous caller mentioned. And what that means simply is is that if the local district can't get up to that $6000 figure the state would kick in enough to make it a $6000 per child figure. Well let me ask you this would actually harm the Chicago school districts that currently enjoy the very high spending per pupil per pupil or other ways that they would be able to maintain that spending. Well if Ralph were here he would he be able to answer that very well. Jack I

can't but I think that there is a way. I think that the Center for tax and budget accountability has has looked at all of these scenarios and says this is going to be beneficial there will be no school district that will lose funding under this House bill. Yeah. We have a couple callers let's include them in a conversation we have just about 10 minutes left and we'll go next to a campus caller on line number one. Good morning. Hi. We've heard it said a number of times this is going to be an uphill battle. And of course that's true I want to. Encourage anybody who is listening and it's decided that this is overall a good idea. First of all to thank Senator Graham Cole who who as you noted is one of the very few at this point supporters of this bill thank him. And if he's not your senator your senators on Also the governor needs to be encouraged to support this. The indications are that that he is not going to support it. I actually met with Senator Winkle a

while back and one of the things he said is they're hoping to get a veto proof majority on this because they're afraid that the governor would reap veto it. So if you think this is a good idea. Right. To your governor write to your representatives and encourage them to back it up. OK thank you. Thanks for the call. The governor has put himself in a very serious corner and has really had to struggle with that. And I hope he has to struggle with it a whole lot more because taking an income tax portion out of consideration for school support is just not a reasonable thing to do. And I think he made a mistake when he did that. But but that was history. We have a future to look forward to the governor did talk about not raising the state income tax but also taking care of the schools and he has shown that he has a great interest in schools. So we need to hold his feet to the fire.

Terrifically on this issue. Well there is a danger for any politician who is going to support what could be spun as a tax increase and I remember very clearly from the campaign of Don Clark natch how she was accused. I remember very clearly the campaign ad saying she favors a 47 percent tax increase and that on the face of it sounds really you know if you're against raising taxes really bad. And so you know it's easy to spin this in a political campaign to make someone look like they're supporting their tax and spend liberal. Put it that way. But this configuration does lots of new revenue would be coupled with 2.5 billion with a B abatement in local property taxes. And this is a huge shift shift. Even without educational funding disparities being between school districts being as they are. So this is the right time we think the vehicle is here we think the discussion ought to continue with House bill 750 and and really move forward. Again it's easy to

say I'm a I'm a legislator that's for children for education they need to get some backbone here and really do what's right for children. Gene you've mentioned before that even with raising the state income tax to 5 percent how would we rate with it compared to a state like Mississippi. Well from what I understand we're 40 first right now in income tax. What we tax our citizens and even if we went from 3 percent which was proposed to 5 percent income tax increase we would only raise to thirty fourth in the country a net with ties with the state of Mississippi. We have two callers waiting and I'll try to get a both in before we run out of time we have just about five minutes left to go next to a listener in Douglas County on line number four. Good morning. Yes the host clearly but I just want to go when we called the governor. QUESTION But the part that's very alert to this planet and the governor at your computer

and I understand there is somebody representing you from here on this panel. Yes. The Farm Bureau has a political action committee that's very closely affiliated with Republicans. Are you people going to call off the dogs. Will you commit to keeping your. People in line and punishing those legislators demagogue this issue because one can understand those of us who remember Don Clark and his campaign and and precisely those that the house just referred to and the farm bill did not come to her defense. They let her dangle in the wind. And what makes it even more ironic is when the governor at your was re-elected. He then proposed something very similar to her plan. But of course he had already taught everybody that this was a toxic issue and it was dead in the water. But I'd like to hear the people from the Farm Bureau commit that they will stand behind Canada to take the lead on this and they will

punish their Republican. Demagogue the issue. OK we take your point. You want to tackle that Dennis. Well as they are the Farm Bureau guy here the lowly staffer I can tell you with conviction that I don't necessarily tell my farmer members what to do and we do not. We do not endorse a statewide candidate so you know the caller said we didn't come to Don Clark neches defense. I think what we did was we came to the defense of the concept. We were in a position to save her campaign save her candidacy. And we're we've consistently supported the concept through time and talk both Democrats and Republicans into supporting this concept and I think that's important this this hasn't necessarily been a Democratic issue or necessarily been a Republican issue. It's been an

issue that's been near and dear to people who do leaders who have really understood education policy and wanted to push it forward. And so we've been in a position not of penalize ing politicians or rewarding politicians on this issue. But I've been forming just as many as we could and working with just as many groups as we could to make it clear how we want to hand how we want this issue to be handled in Springfield. Speaking just for stamping County Farm Bureau and I've been on the legislative committee for and about 30 years now and very active in that past chairman of the legislative committee I can tell you that we worked very diligently to work with both sides of the aisle and the independence that we have developed relationships with both sides of the aisle people that we currently work with the local representatives of both parties.

And we do that statewide also actually here in Champaign County we have Representative Larry McKeown who is one of the leaders Democratic leaders in the house right now. He comes to Champagne County several times a year and visits with us and goes out on a farm with us. So we do work with both sides. OK. I'm sorry to say that we're out of time and there's much more we could talk about but before we end do you want to again give out the website address of people if they would like to know more they can find out. Be happy to. It's a plus. Illinois that's a P L us Illinois. All one word. Dot org. OK. You know also Jack if I might the Coalition for school funding reform is the champagne County chapter is at 3 12 West Oregon that's a little elementary school in her Banna and also then there's the Center for tax and budget accountability that both of these groups have speaker bureaus and would be

happy to send out someone to your group that tax and budget accountability group is in Chicago and we can get that information to people as well if they call legal school. OK very good. Well our guests for this hour Jeanne Emberg whose voice you just heard super tentative Urbana school district 116 Lynn ward full a long time member of the champagne County Farm Bureau also in the parkin College Board of Trustees and many other roles in Illinois education. And Janice very clear direct abuse information for the Illinois farm bureau. Members of the A-plus Illinois campaign. Thanks to you all for being here. Thank you very much. Thanks.