Gaming idea floated
House GOP Leader Tom Cross comes up with a new school funding idea.
House Minority Leader Tom Cross says he will introduce legislation [this] week that would require the city of Joliet to share half of its casino revenue with local school districts and is considering broadening the proposal to include the cities of Aurora and Elgin. [...]
While the plan, if approved, would cost Joliet about $15 million, Aurora would stand to lose about $6.5 million — half of the roughly $13 million the city collected in tax revenues from the Hollywood Casino last year.
Local municipalities aren't happy, of course.
Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner, however, said the Cross plan is nothing more than "passing the buck."
"It's frustrating," Weisner said. "To me, this is just a bogus approach to dealing with a statewide school funding crisis. It's Mr. Cross' way of trying to pass the state's responsibilities on to the local municipalities."
City officials in Joliet were similarly unenthused, with one councilman, Joe Shetina, calling the plan "really not a good idea."
Cross' candidate lost to Weisner last month, but I'm not sure if this is payback or not.
posted by Rich Miller @ 5/24/2005 07:44:00 AM
8 comments
8 Comments...
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Wonder if Cross will work this bill as hard as his historic efforts to pass Dan Hynes stem cell research plan?
Yeah 6.5 Million is going to lead to a dramatic property tax decrease....
There are huge problems with this. First, in Aurora there are at least three school districts (Aurora, IP, and Oswego 308) how do you split the money up. Number of students from each city in each SD? SQ miles of city in terms of each district?
Or another way to look at it, 6.5 Million would have been 2% of the IP referendum or less than 10% of the local tax revenues the 308 SD gets.
Heck I have been overpaying about 10% the last three years due to the way Kane calculates the 308 tax rate because Kendall county can't get their number in on time.
Dramatic property tax reduction, yeah right. It doesn't add up.
Again someone is either going to have to go without the city services or pay for them a different way if the cities don't get their full share.
OneMan
Are not making it? 308 had enough money to build a new high school and passed it's second referendum in 3 years.
IP tried to get money to build a new high school that cost $15 more to build (just the building, excluding the land cost was $15 more) than the High School Oswego opened this year. Their previous High School in IP was the most expensive ever built in the state. If IP is struggling, they should stop having building plans that are so expensive.
At least 2 of the districts in Aurora are 'making it' just fine.
Most of the tax reveune generated by casinos goes into general revenue at the state level. Which can fund things like, education.
I have an idea, why not give the school disticts half of the cities cut out of the state cut?
Also with the way state funding is calculated odds are any increase in funding from a source like this will be met with a decrease in state funding. Every time we approve a tax increase our state funding goes down per student.
It's most amusing that the oh-so moral GOP would rather give the future of our children's education more and more to gambling instead doing the hard work of creating a fair, equitable taxing system. I'm waiting for the "Right" to call for legalizing marijuana, heroin and prostitution just so they don't see a rise on the ridiculously low state income tax rate.
Bureaucrat vs. bureaucrat is fast becoming my favorite battle to watch. Revenues are drying up just as fast as expenses are rising, so it become profitable for one to steal from another. Another one I like watching is the CTA vs. RTA.
In the end, it will be the taxpayers that get screwed (deservedly so, as they let it happen), but it is fun to watch these guys try to steal from one another under the banner of 'morality'
Rich, no payback here.. Cross is probably mad about all the homes Joliet is building in his Plainfield District, outside of the Joliet School System.. Joliet is planning on building thousands of homes without providing basic community services.
Payback. Cities like Aurora and Joliet aren't allowed to expand? I'm not aware of any state law that prohibits them from annexing land. I'm not aware of any state law prohibiting cities and school districts from enacting an land/cash fees and impact fee to help deal with the new growth.
Anon 7:32 p.m., please describe the 'basic community services' that Joliet is failing to provide in the new areas. No city in Illinois other than Chicago runs their public school system.
And Leigh and Oneman, six public school districts serve Aurora's kids: West Aurora, East Aurora, Indian Prairie, Oswego, Batavia and Kaneland.
Cross should stop picking on the Democratic cities outside of Chicago and spend some time of real education funding reform.
6:50 AM anonymous...
Thanks for the update, Aurora is a big city and sometimes you forget about the parts outside of your corner.
So the $6.5 million would be even more spread out.
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