Leadership Matters - February 2013

Budget, cost shift and school safety shape spring agenda

exchange for giving up access to the state’s health insurance plan and foregoing future

The education legislative agenda for the 98 th General Assembly is beginning to take shape. While the intertwined issues of budget and pension reform — including the controversial cost-shift proposal — look to occupy center ring of the spring session circus, other important issues like school safety and the never-ending struggle against unfunded mandates will make for interesting sideshows.

salary increases for calculating pension benefits. Part B is considered the constitutional “backstop” if any provision in Part A is ruled unconstitutional by the courts. The impact of the cost shift on school districts could be substantial on top of budget cuts and unfunded mandates. And the pressure to take some sort of action on the pension reform issue continues to mount. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services recently again lowered the state’s credit rating, this time to A-, just a couple steps above junk bond rating. "While legislative action on pension reform could occur during the current legislative session and various bills have been filed, we believe that legislative consensus on reform will be difficult to achieve given the poor track record in the past two years," the ratings agency said. School safety on agenda after Sandy Hook tragedy The governor held a School Safety Summit on January 22 to discuss ways in which we might make our schools safer and ways to lessen the chances of another tragic incident such as occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. IASA along with School Management Alliance partners the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB), the Illinois Principals Association (IPA) and the Illinois Association of School Business Officials (IASBO) attended as well as law enforcement, emergency management, public health, the Illinois Education Association (IEA), the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), ISBE and other stakeholders. Lots of good ideas were discussed, including the importance of School Resource Officers (SROs), ways to enhance the security of entrances to schools, getting more mental health resources involved and trying to promote a culture in which students would report threats of school violence. While some of those items might only involve training or a change in procedures, much of what was discussed would involve expenditures. No one is opposed to enhancing school safety, but if unfunded mandates emerge, many school districts (Continued on page 20)

Diane Hendren, Chief of Staff / Director of Governmental Relations

The education budget showdown Governor Quinn is scheduled to deliver his “State of the State” address February 6 and his “Budget Address” March 6, so we soon will know where he stands on the issue of funding for public education. We already have a pretty good hint given that his office released a preliminary report indicating cuts of up to $400 million for the FY14 education budget. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) recently released its FY14 budget proposal calling for full funding of General State Aid (GSA) as the largest part of an $874 million increase. It is really important that superintendents and other educational leaders get behind restoring GSA to its foundation level after public schools suffered through an 11 percent cut this school year. If education is cut as deeply as the governor has suggested, it is estimated that GSA could dip as low as 80 percent of the foundation level in FY14. Here is a link to the full ISBE budget table . Cost shift rears its head again As quickly as the cost shift disappeared during the lame-duck session in early January, it has reappeared in bills proposed by Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) and Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D-Northbrook). Senate Bill 35 and House Bill 98 both mirror the language in the Nekritz-Biss-Cross bill in that they offer no choice provision and include a pensionable salary cap, a four-year freeze on cost-of-living adjustments, no COLA until age 67, a 2 percent increase in employee contributions – and the cost shift. Senate Bill 1, introduced by Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), includes two parts. Part A mirrors SB 35 and HB 98 except for the fact it does not have a cost shift. Part B offers employees and retirees a choice to keep their 3 percent compound COLA in

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