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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:03 AM CDT
Superintendents plead for promised state funds

by MIKE RIOPELL, JG-TC Springfield Bureau
mike.riopell@lee.net

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois school superintendents whose districts were promised $150 million in state construction money several years ago traveled to Springfield on Tuesday to call on Gov. Rod Blagojevich to release it soon.

Lawmakers and Blagojevich approved legislation this summer that appeared to grant the districts the money they were promised in the 2002 fiscal year to help repair or expand old school buildings.

But the money to 23 downstate districts and Chicago public schools was withheld because the necessary paperwork wasn’t completed.

The emotional roller coaster of going from thinking they’d get to fix their school buildings after a five-year wait to hearing that the money was no longer available outraged many school officials.

“We are a dying patient on a hospital bed,” said Ruth Schneider, superintendent of the Stewardson-Strasburg school district.

Schneider’s district has been waiting on $2 million for improvements, and she says the district has “teachers literally teaching in storage closets.”

This summer, lawmakers approved about $150 million in school construction money that was tucked into legislation that also gave themselves and Blagojevich pay raises.

Blagojevich’s office circulated vote tallies Tuesday to show the lawmakers calling for the schools’ money voted against the plan to grant it.

State Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville, said “no” votes like his were votes against pay increases for lawmakers and Blagojevich.

“It contained items regarding pay increases that some people just simply didn’t agree with,” he said.

Blagojevich argued the money for school construction should come from a much larger and more complicated statewide construction program. That plan failed earlier this month as lawmakers couldn’t come to an agreement.

“The needs at these schools and many others throughout our state are great, and I have consistently advocated for a capital construction program to meet these needs,” Blagojevich wrote in a letter Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the governor again Tuesday declined to act on state budget legislation. The delay means school districts across the state will miss their second August payment of state support, according to state Comptroller Dan Hynes.

Mike Riopell can be reached at mike.riopell@lee.net or (217) 789-0865.

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