SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Schools across Illinois are bracing for the worst as the state continues to miss promised funding payments amid a years-long budget standoff between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats in control of the General Assembly.

Last year, the governor and General Assembly agreed to a stop-gap school funding measure that increased education spending by nearly $1 billion, but school officials contend they haven’t received the payments as promised.

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The last minute agreement – inked one day before the July 1 deadline – was designed to carry schools through the 2016-17 school year, and the situation seems to be repeating itself this year.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

The state has kept current on general state aid to schools. That’s the big-ticket item in school funding, which has increased from $4.4 billion in the 2015 budget year to $4.6 billion in 2016 and $5.1 billion in 2017. But it has fallen behind on payments for other expenses like extracurricular activities, transportation costs and special education, known as “mandated categoricals.” The state requires those programs, so it contributes money to help cover the costs.

In the 2015 budget year, the state paid school districts $1.72 billion to help with those programs. For 2016 and 2017, it promised to pay $1.76 billion each year, but this year has missed three of its four quarterly payments. The total owed to schools is at least $1 billion, according to the comptroller’s office.

Lawmakers also left behind a pile of about $15 billion in unpaid bills to schools, state contractors, social service providers and others when they concluded the legislative session in May. Like last year, Rauner forced them to return to Springfield for a special session that started Wednesday in hopes of finding a solution that will keep schools open next year.

Elgin U-46 school district CEO Tony Sanders told WGN his district is owed $24 million from the state and warned that dire cuts loom on the horizon if state lawmakers and the governor don’t come to an agreement on a full state budget by July 1.

“We are looking now at draining our pools, cutting out after school busing activities just so we can get as much gas out of our tank as we can,” Sanders said.

Sanders pointed out that local schools can’t make hiring decisions because of the budget problems, while the state has hired hundreds of new employees over the last three months, including some at the Department of Education with six-figure salaries, WGN reports.

“It’s everybody’s fault. It’s the legislatures fault. It’s the governor’s fault and it’s our fault for not putting pressure on them to come up with a budget,” Sanders said. “We all need to be putting pressure on Springfield for lack of a budget.”

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Other superintendents agree, and Senate President John Cullerton told the Tribune they’re putting pressure on lawmakers to come up with a real budget, not just empty promises for payment.

“My members are not going to just authorize spending of money without the money,” Cullerton said.
“Andy by the way, the school districts don’t want to do that. The school districts themselves, maybe not all of them, but the ones that are poorer, I think there’s 500 of them said, ‘We don’t want the authorization.’ So, we have clear direction. So we ain’t going nowhere until the House votes on revenue.”

Meanwhile, the state continues to spend about $7 billion more per year than it collects in taxes. Spending continues because of state laws that require payments on debt and pensions, and court orders that mandate payments for state worker salaries and medical coverage for low-income families, the Tribune reports.

And as Rauner and Assembly Democrats continue their year’s long quarrel over reforming taxes and the state’s unfunded pension liabilities, schools in the West Aurora School District 129 and others are running out of reserves.

“We are down $10.5 million of what the state owes us for expenses and services we’ve already committed to and we’ve already expended,” superintendent Jeff Craig told the Tribune.

He said the district cut spending by $6 million, but its current cash reserves will by gone within the next month.

“If we have to shut our doors, I’m wondering which of the legislators, or which of the leaders or the governor, is going to stand next to us and attend to our 26,000 parents across our district,” Craig said.

It’s a similar situation in other districts.

Paris Union School District 95 superintendent Jeremy Larson told the Tribune-Star officials there are still waiting on a $500,000 payment from the state for 2016-17.

“The state owes us money and, of course, that’s always going to have uncertainty on us,” he said. “It’s hard to budget when there is no state budget.”

State Rep. Bob Prichard, a Republican, told the Tribune it will likely take outrage from taxpayers and parents to convince state politicians to compromise to approve a budget.

“They need to start talking about not opening school this fall and get their parents engaged in pressuring legislators,” he said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get a budget before July.”

Sanders agreed it will likely take drastic measures to compel Springfield politicians to actually accomplish anything.

“I do think that it might take a crisis like that for there to actually be action coming out of Springfield,” he told the Tribune.