Tuesday, July 31, 2012
School board members want to see what kind of non-personnel cuts can be made and what impact those cuts will have on students.
Plainfield School District 202 board members have big budgetary decisions to make in the coming months. On the one hand, the district is expected to see a roughly $7.8 million surplus from the 2011-12 budget thanks to more efficient transportation routes, decreased utility bills and other cost-control measures. An audit, which will determine the exact surplus, is scheduled to begin next month, but district officials said the revenues should exceed expenses by between $7 million and $8 million. On the other hand, the district is anticipating an $8.1 million deficit in the upcoming 2012-13 budget. Superintendent. John Harper said at a special school board meeting on Monday that the school board needs to decide if it is willing to adopt a …
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Will County executive candidate Cory Singer says opponent Walsh's and the House speaker need to defend shifting pension debt to local school districts.
- OPINION
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Dear Editor: As a Will County Board member and a candidate for Will County executive, I am calling on Will County Executive Larry Walsh to invite Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan for a free lunch in Will County. The lunch should be a forum for Walsh and Madigan to explain why Will County school districts and taxpayers should be punished with a huge tax increase when the state has so poorly managed its finances. Speaker Madigan is pushing a plan to transfer $40 billion of state teacher pension liabilities onto local school districts and communities. Recently, the speaker said suburban and downstate taxpayers are getting a “free lunch” when it comes to paying for those pension liabilities. The speaker and his friends have led Illinois…
Friday, June 1, 2012
A plan to shift the teacher pension burden onto local school districts is dead in the water — at least for now.
Relief was tempered with caution Thursday as District 202 board members reacted to the news that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) was scrapping a plan to pass the cost of teachers’ pensions on to local school districts. The plan, part of Senate Bill 1673, was aimed at addressing the state’s $83 billion unfunded pension liability. More than half — $44 billion — of that is from the Teachers Retirement System (TRS). “It does give me hope,” said board member Mike Kelly, who has traveled to Springfield numerous times to lobby for school funding reform. According to Kelly, if Madigan’s plan had become a reality, it would have cost District 202 between $10 million and $15 million per year. That would have meant more job cuts in …
Monday, April 30, 2012
District 202 board member Mike Kelly says the end result of the governor's proposal will be more teacher layoffs and higher local property taxes.
- OPINION
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Monday, April 30, 2012
The governor of the state of Illinois seems to think he can balance the state’s checkbook on the backs of Illinois students. In moving more transportation costs to local school districts, it means ILLINOIS jobs will be lost. Plainfield School District 202 has already cut nearly 400 jobs over the last four years. There are lots of people in Illinois who think we need pension reform. I agree that we need to work with a pension plan that we can afford. However, in my 15 years as a volunteer school board member, not one parent has come to me and asked for the cheapest education. Each parent has asked me for the best education and the greatest opportunity for their children in their local schools. In each of the almost 400 jobs we cut over the …
John Roberts
7:39 am on Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Ron Paul get big government out of the school system....Joliet central got all of that money to build an addition to the school.that same year my kids came to me and said that the school is about out of paper to print on and ink for printers cause the school is BROKE. All while receiving that money expecting the children to have higher grades and when they did not the government blamed the … more ›