" Wow, cut positions and now cut special education participation.

It was good enough while the superintendant served on the board, now its something that would be better done completely in house. I suppose the demo, reconstruction, of armstrong centers former location will now be completely new special ed accomodations. Such a move would disguise the millions for transportation facilities for a 30+ leased bus operation.

Max levy followed by staffing cuts, leading to this, needs some concise clarification. Two weeks of being off the board, producing a disolving of partnerships, raises some immediate flags. Combined with the cuts and budget issues, it raises many many more. "

" Um I am not so sure that this is even legal. It would be the same as a employee for a company, stealing clients with inside info. If I was EIASE I would have my lawyer check into and order a investigation against Lilly for sure.
And like Mike P said we cut all of these positions and cutbacks. Now we want to add more to the people who are left plates. That sure does sound like bull of some sort here.
It is all bull they all try to cut the special services to force people to say ok take more. Examples > special needs people cuts, elderly people cuts and now special ed cuts. What a joke these people need tar and feathered and sent down the road. "

" I am unsure if the Mattoon School District will be able to provide for the needs of low incidence disabilities and their needed services such as deaf education services, visual impairment services, Occupational and Physical Therapy services. As soon as Mattoon pulls out of the co-op, Charleston will surely be next. This will be the death of EIASE. They had better think long and hard about this. It may save money but will the needs of children be met? "

" When the school districts that pull out of EIASE find out how much they'll have to spend to take care of these kids, they may wish they hadn't. Transportation costs would go down and sheriff's deputies wouldn't have to make so many trips to Humboldt; but other than that, they won't save in the long run. "

" Lilly's not know for having good ideas. Is this another one of his brilliant moves? I hope his underlings are successful in pointing out the dangers of this folly. "

" Also note...The board will hear a presentation from Anne Noble, representing the St. Louis Metro area banking group Stifel Nicolaus, regarding the County School Facility Sales Tax Option law passed in 2007.

This hidden gem I missed evidently.

Look for another sympathetic plea to taxpayers for more dollars via a sales tax referendum. Going to have to be a hostage crisis of some kind to circumvent all the bad faith actions by school boards and other tax bodies. Instead of confronting the real issue causing them to be shorted, they want to do what everyone else is doing and thow in a sales tax for schools to top off the 35 million they can't manage to make ends meet with, and constantly claim life safety issues with structure after structure. They will put it up in a typically low turn out cycle, hoping to fare better than the library did with its attempt at expansion.

The last thing stagnant sustainable growth needs is any more sales tax excuses of any kind. Misleading voters, or circumventing them all together has various schemes prop ups and slush funds soaking local consumers and taxpayers already.


Getting out of the co-op, will increase overhead costs, and limit resources available. If they cherrypick which services to do in house to save money and improve efficiency, the Co-ops viability for the whole of services they offer will be less stable. Two weeks off the board and suddenly jumping ship, with presentations prepared by several folks, suggests there might have been some underhanded objectivity going on while still serving. How many more administrators will need to be added, to the who knows how top heavy sallaried grand facade on Charleston avenue? Isn't Mattoon furnishing the facilities for a fee, for most of the special ed co-op programs?

This paper needs to get the public represented, and stop throwing occasional tid bits of vague information, wrapped in soy ink and paper, to its readers. Occasional Our jaded views, roasting decisions mostly after the fact, is not journalism. The library expansions were covered regularly at least monthly for over a year, and then they were still head scratching when most of it and previous information they provided failed to add up. Asleep at the wheel, needs to end and curiosity tempered with a little commonsense needs to get many issues dug into. Anything and everything should be subject to questioning of all sides of the issues. When you regurgitate cut and pasting provided statement handouts and call it reporting or news coverage, you fail to represent anyone but those providing only vage basic information that often fails to pass the smell test, let alone add up to what it was presented to represent. "

" FYI: There is a federal law out there called RtI which, basically, is a removal of all special education services and an eventual re-integration of all students inside the regular education classroom within the next few years. It, like most laws, is much more complicated than that but that is the gist of it.

The school district is not demolishing the old shoe factory or building a new site for Armstrong anytime in the near future; too expensive. It bought the old bread store site to move transportation-related services but just so you know, it will cost the taxpayers of the school district more money to not demolish the old factory because of state and federal-mandated laws about education-related sites, etc...

And, yes, there will be a look at raising taxes in the future either through a sales tax increase or a referendum because of a few reasons: 1. The fabulous No Child Left Behind law has not been funded by the federal government but school districts, including Mattoon, are still required to pay for those initiatives. 2. The state is not funding ANYTHING right now and probably will not in the near future. 3. When the state does fund education, Illinois is the fifth-worse funded state in the nation as far as the state funding of education is concerned. But hey, if everybody would rather save $50-$100 a year and not fund education through a tax increase in Mattoon, we will have more dropouts who, statistically, commit more crimes and are statistically-proven to end up in poorer overall health; both things that we will pay for with our taxes anyway. Or, we can cut all extracurricular activities from the school district instead to save money, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. We all know how much the community would hate to see money not go to sports, but it is okay not to fund students' educations.

Yes everyone, Larry Lilly makes some bad decisions; we all do, unless you are not human. But think about this: we need to educate our youth, teachers need to be paid (poorly-paid teachers tend to be poor teachers), and everyone in education is being told what to do by the state and federal governments without being given money to do so.

Trust me, everyone in education wants the Utopian society where you nor I have to pay for education. Springfield, for example, is putting us in this predicament by not passing an income tax increase which, in turn, would lead to more tax exemptions for the lower classes and a LESSENING of property taxes; which, by the way, would not have to be so high if state and federal government funded education at the levels they both promised to all these years and have not.

The school district is not just spending money on a whim. Most of these expenditures that the community does not like are being mandated by government. Teachers salaries are statistically in the lower third to middle in this area. By the way, the district will be spending less money on teachers' salaries the next few years because of all the retired teachers being replaced by mostly brand new teachers. When buildings are replaced, like all the elementary schools, it is because the government told the district it had to or spend MILLIONS MORE to fix them.

Education needs the community's support. It needs the leaders' support. It needs families' support. It needs the government's support.

After this long post, I am sure there will be some upset replies. Please just keep in mind, the school district is trying to do the best it can to educate your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, brothers, and sisters. It is not trying to make a profit, it is not trying to pull the "wool over your eyes", and it is being told to do a lot more than the public realizes without being funded. For all of those reasons, yes, Mattoon will pull out of EIASE; it has to because it is being given no other financial option than to do so... "

" Wow, cut positions and now cut special education participation.



They can cut it out all they want, at the end of the day, they will still have to educate them, they had better remember the Supreme Courts recent ruling, parents can send their children to private Special Schools and the district has to pay the bill and that can be thousands of dollars per month per child, as per the case out wers where the school was ordered to pay $5200 a month for 1 child. Multiply that by 29 and see how much money they have left at the end of the day. "

" Sales tax is regressive, hitting the people who can least afford to pay hardest. That's why the wealthy tax-dodging swine always favor it in their never-ending quest to force the American poor and middle class to subsidize them.
Rich people pay a small percentage of their income for sales-taxed items, while poor people have no choice but to spend their WHOLE incomes on sales-taxed items. "

" Be sure to peruse "Charleston school board to hear tax plan" It sheds limitedly more light on this next so and so did it ploy to circumvent PTELL, and ignore TIF's impacts.

If the school is tired of being shorted why don't they start standing up to blatant abuse of tax sequestering. Instead they want citizens to fill any and every gap.

I am all for additional or percentages of sales tax collection at the same rate, being divided between all shorted entities annually.

Mattoon, already now bases around 1/3 of its budget on sales tax collections. What it gets shorted in the general fund from property tax sequestering, it gets some if not all back in sales tax from propping things up on everyone elses dime. Still has the gall to max levy, circumvent voters on 10 million in questionable investment bonds, and lots of other nonsense.

Last report, the school board still had demolition and new transportation structure in its budget. If that changed any I missed it. Seems like cash strapped might allow 30+ leased busses to sit outside.

Until details of what the building on charleston avenue and other administrative costs eat up, out of the 35 million they can't make ends meet on, we have heard it all before. Superintendant sallary could have been cut by 2 or more teachers sallary, and he would still earn more than the governor, I think. Many other administrative sallaries, could probably sacrifice a share or full teachers wage or two, stillbe well compensated, and actually put their money where their mouth is. Me me me mentality in entities, wants people to dig deeper, but not have their arm fulls impacted in the same or any measure.

Twenty years ago sports and programs got held hostage, and voters answered the call. Schools hit redial, and called back for more, for another sympathy plea. Soon after that, they suddenly desperatly need to replace every grade school building at once. Sympathy kind of flatlined. Check for a pulse now, but the buy the bull dynamic, probably hasn't changed much.

Since schools can't stand up to the cities to get their due. Why should taxpayers pony up yet again to just keep shoveling money in the furnace to go up in smoke, on all kinds of frivolous aesthetics and progects.

Millions of surplus, got pigeon holed to force taxpayers to fund lots of demoliton and construction against their will. How many building went completely to pot claiming life safety at exactly the same time?

Charleston had the biggest drop in median income, in 2007. The last year of economic bubble boom times. To think that isn't remotely relavent to the rest of the county is a bit more than simply being naive. Lots of people have lost jobs since, had hours cut or other deep impacts to income. The trough is going dry, and entities want taxpayers to ration their water more and more so business as usual can keep going at the bottled we know better than voters could, water plant.

Baffling was evidently absolutely no lie. Local leaders still seem to be. Out of touch, head in the sand, left fielder local leaders are lining up with one hand out, and a hat in the other, while other folks circulate with collection baskets.

How can folks live here and actually be that out of touch? "

" Medic-You are some what correct. However, the person would have to show that the district is not providing the services that are required in the IEP. This can be a long and lengthy process. Just a little FYI. On another note unfortunately this happening in other school districts through out the state because of our state budget. Education has to be funded in order for school districts to be able to sub-contract out these services. My concern is for the employees of EAISE. There is no mention of the Mattoon School District giving these employees who will lose their jobs. Preferential consideration when hiring the new staff that they will have to have in order to do this. "

" The Question...Are you seriuos!

"That's why the wealthy tax-dodging swine always favor it in their never-ending quest to force the American poor and middle class to subsidize them."

Wealthy people are the ones that pay for everything. The rich are the ones who need the tax breaks. After they tax all the rich people to death who is going to pay for everything. So called rich people shouldn't be forced to pay for everything. Oh and by the way I am not even remotely rich nor do I plan on ever being rich. "

" Once EIASE gets their hands on a student it is very, very hard to get that student back into their home districts. I have a kid who went to EIASE, first at the old Central High School and then at Humboldt when they moved the "local" school out there. He was put in that program in 1st grade and was in it until he moved out of the state with his Mother when he was 15, technically a HS sophomore. In 10 years never once was any serious attempt at reintegration was made even though he met the requirements 3 times, but each time the staff and administrators there sabotaged him in order to keep their funding. "

" Why does Mattoon have two Directors of Special Ed. Also how much money will Mattoon save if it has to provide services for Hearing,Vision,Rehab,Speech,Severe Emotional Disorders, and Students who are Developmentally Delayed with Life Threatening conditions? "

" By saving all that money how many special ed students will they have to cut, will all the students still get the help they need,will the people who they think can do this be overloaded and pushed to their limit. If they can cut our chidrens care, then maybe the ones who want to cut it should be taking pay cuts themselves, before any action is taken I feel there shoud be some more investigation and public responce considered. "

" ak927

Nope, the couple that brought that suit had never even put their child in that school district and the didtrict was still ordered to pay. "

" A couple of points: g1g2:Your explanation of RTI is very much over simplified. Yes, the emphasis is to try many scientifically based interventions first, before a child is placed in special education. Special Education will continue to exist, there will always be children that must have services.Moderate disabled students will continue to need services, severly learning disabled children will continue to need services. Also The students at the Neil Armstrong Program and the students placed at DDC will continue to need special education services.BUT if we pull out of EIASE where will the DDC students be housed? There is not room at Hawthorne School. There are limits to the number of children that can be in a classroom. The students will not be served well if they are placed in the same classroom. At this point, most of the Mattoon TLC students are located in the regular buildings but there still are students that would need to be re-integrated. These students have the most needs in terms of behavior control. Will their needs be met?
There are many questions that need to be looked at and considered. I certainly hope that the decision is well thought out and not be a rash decision. "

" Was he TLC Jim??
g1g2 it sounds as if you know some thing. So if what you sat is true we does it say they are leaving to save money?? If it is really because the law says they have to?? You see the people in control around here have lied and misled us so often it is hard to believe or even stomach to listen to what they say "

" The rich are not seriously burdened by taxes in this nation any longer, and they are often subsidized by taxpayers through such mechanisms as no-bid crony-capitalist contracts.
Before JFK took office, anyone making an income of more than $200,000 was taxed at a rate of 93 per cent. Corporations also paid a much higher percentage of the total tax burden than they do today. The higher tax rates on the wealthy never hurt Gross Domestic Product, which was consistently above 4 per cent during these years, and the middle class economic boom then was unlike anything seen previously in history.
Today, after 30 years of Republican tax cuts for the rich and the "free market deregulation" of Wall Street crooks, we have a virtual economic depression. "

" Get this...

One of the selling talking points for the sales tax for schools, is to pay off construction bonds to give some measure of property tax relief.

If it were to pass, taxpayers could pick up the tab, for the referendum they shot down, but got legalese hoodwinked and snookered on. Giving the offending tax body new revenue source, plus the constant potential to max levy.

Many districts are promising to provide property tax relief, in writing, to get their hands on some deeper pocketed separate funding. The person signing hits the door or changes their mind, that paper is worth just as much as their word usually is.

I wonder if they can get some local violinists to provide chamber music for their pleas and promises presentations.
---
State is considering ending the practice of letting retailers keep 1.75% of the sales taxes they collect and forwarding that to education instead.
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Missouri has what, 4% state sales tax.

Iowa's is 6%, but 1% of that is for schools.

Its almost like these leaders on on some secluded island, with plenty of sand to stick their heads in. Occasional muffled sounds from the sand can be heard seeming to say; But I'm a politician, get me out of here.......

Might be time to get those shovels, pitch forks, and torches rounded up. One of them is going to utter let them eat cake, and finally get the serfs able to unite on something. "

" Sounds like the school board and EIASE need to look at a few things work out the bugs out so to speak. This article makes it sound as though the school district is being charged for services that are being fullfilled by the school district not by EIASE. I really hope that the school district realizes that these special education kids really need the services that they are reciving through EIASE. "

" devilishangel61401


Fortunately, these kids will get the help they need, unfortunately, our school board, by dropping Eiase, will pay much more for those services when parents send their kids to specials all over the state and send the bills to the Mattoon School District. "

" TQ,

Are you stating that prior to JFK, people who made over 200k paid 93% of it back to the government. I find that a little hard to swallow. I have to disagree with you that all wealthy individuals in this country are given no-bid contracts either. The top 1% richest people pay like 30% of all income taxes even though they only earn like 14% of all income. That's simply not fair and punishes people for the fulfilling the American Dream. A flat or consumption tax is more fair that the current system. A sales tax would not hurt the poor more since most plans do not include things like food and medicine. Rich people spend more on non-necessities = more taxes. You don't seem to have a problem with you precious Democrats taxing cigarettes and booze more. Everyone agrees that hits the poor harder. "

" A sales tax would not hurt the poor more since most plans do not include things like food and medicine.


I see Ed, so, poor people only buy food and medicine, right? They don't buy clothes, gas, toilet paper, soap, detergent, maybe once or twice a year they let their kids go to the show.

As far as taxes go, in 1985 I won $100,000.00 on a scratch off ticket, my tax bracket that year was 48% with the other $21,000.00 I made. "

" You right wingers' trouble is that you always dismiss facts you find "a little hard to swallow," Ed. Try CHECKING them instead.
In the mid-2oth century, tax rates in the United States and United Kingdom exceeded 90 percent. As recently as the late 1970s, the top tax rate in the U.S. was 70 percent. "

" why should anyone pay a higher tax rate? How is that fair? We should all pay an equal percentage for government services. The forefathers intended for the federal government to provide defense, regulate trade and little else. Now we are supposed to provide health care and retirement for everyone who won't provide for themselves. "

" The people who benefit the MOST from American society the very rich should pay more for the privilege. "

" Think of all that money the privileged put into off shore accounts and into numbered Swiss accounts, TQ. If we only knew how much of the money (literally pallets full) that was stolen in Iraq found its way to those hiding places.

Let's hope that the Dems don't wimp out of investigating Bush and Cheney for all their criminal actions, who knows such an investigation might uncover the truth about the theft of those billions too. "

" Now we are supposed to provide health care and retirement for everyone who won't provide for themselves. "



Hey Ed, what about the ones who CAN'T provide for themselves, what is the answer there, unlimited free Bankruptcy? or maybe just turn them away completely, what is your answer Ed. "