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The Lease Fund is an authorized
levy at $.05 for all kinds of districts
that can be increased to $.10 by
referendum. Normally, the fund is
used for leasing (not purchasing)
educational
facilities
(mobile
classrooms), computer technology or
both. School districts often don’t take
full advantage of this law.
The fourth paragraph of the law lists
ways these funds may be utilized,
such as the acquisition of buildings,
rooms, grounds and appurtenances to be used by
the district for school or administrative use plus the
equipment, fixtures, renovations, and improvements
to existing facilities of the district necessary to
accommodate computers, computer hardware and
computer software.
Therefore, a district may utilize these funds for
the direct lease purchase of computer hardware,
software, or enter into a lease purchase agreement
with a lending institution for these same items. This
simply means that if you want to lease purchase
more hardware than a year’s levy allows, you may
utilize these funds to pay a lending institution for the
lease purchase with lease levy funds.
Now let’s discuss the expansion of the word and
the meaning of the word “appurtenance.” The
dictionary defines “appurtenance” as something
added to equipment. While not saying it directly, it
implies that something added to a computer can
also be lease purchased. What is normally added to
a computer but a printer? This very normal addition
to a computer is where I am going with this
utilization of the word “appurtenance.”
The normal utilization for school districts for
printers are large and expensive machines that
possess the capability to send remote print jobs with
the utilization of the internet and are normally lease
purchased.
I will come to the point now and suggest to you
that districts may utilize the lease fund to lease
purchase copy machines as long as they have the
capability to receive remote print jobs for a
computer. Copying costs are extensive for all
school districts and any way to remove these costs
from the educational fund is a welcome relief to a
school district budget.
How school districts can use the Lease Fund Law
Dr. Bill Phillips
IASA Field
Services
Director
IASA members approve new combined
Governmental Relations and Advocacy Committee
IASA members approved a change to the
Association’s Bylaws to merge the Legislative
Committee and the Resolutions/Position Statement
Committee into the new Governmental Relations
and Advocacy Committee. The motion was
approved by voice vote at the IASA Annual Meeting
held on February 26 in conjunction with Leadership
Week.
The change was proposed to eliminate overlap
and redundancy and reduces the number of IASA
committees from five to four. As with all committees,
the new Governmental Relations and Advocacy
Committee will be composed of one representative
elected from each of IASA’s 21 Regions for a three-
year term, and the Chair and Associate Chair shall
be members of the Board of Directors.
The mission of the new committee will be the
same as that of the two committees included in the
merger. That mission includes:
Monitoring legislative and political activities that
may impact Illinois public schools;
Serving as a statewide voice for excellence in
education; and
Working to ensure that legislative positions,
public
positions
and
governmental
communications accurately reflect the interests
of administrators and students across Illinois.
The new committee will meet after July 1, the
start of the new fiscal year.
