LM Jan 2020

To be clear, IASA is not opposed to school districts consolidating. We simply believe consolidation has to be a local decision. In order for local communities to take that step, the state needs to provide incentives to make the consolidation economically feasible. In this article, we examined the research on consolidation and spoke to IASA Field Services Director Dr. William Phillips and Dr. Nick Osborne, a professor at Eastern Illinois University Department, about the ramifications. Both have prepared reorganization studies for school districts, and Dr. Phillips even co-wrote a book on the topic. By writing the article, we hope to help IASA members better understand the issue and be more prepared when speaking to local legislators and stakeholders about it during the upcoming legislative session. Problem1: TheStateCouldn’t Afford It In 2010, former Gov. Pat Quinn erroneously said the state could save at least $100 million by cutting down the number of school districts in Illinois to about 300. He was more than a little off. Two years later, a state task force Quinn commissioned, titled the Classrooms First Commission, issued a report that found merging 868 separate elementary and high school districts to a maximum of 300 at once, “would cost the state at least $3 billion under current law.” Why does it cost so much? Since the 1980s, the state has provided a series of financial incentives to make it easier for districts to consolidate. One of the most popular incentives is: If, after consolidation, there is a difference in teacher salaries (an increase), the state covers that difference for four years. This incentive is offered because,

how much of an incentive it will provide based on what it will cost to raise salaries to the higher wage scale. In Illinois, elementary districts often have lower salaries because they encompass a smaller geographical area than high school districts and typically have a much lower EAV. Therefore, the elementary district cannot collect as much money and can’t afford to pay its teachers as much as a high school district. To give an example of the gap, the average teacher salary for one elementary district in the Cook West region is $52,965, according to the Illinois Report Card. Whereas the average salary for the high school district it feeds into is $91,912. Cook West is not unique. One study Dr. Phillips conducted in central Illinois several years ago found that consolidating several elementary feeder districts and a high school district into a unit district would cost an additional $2 million to equalize salaries because each elementary teacher’s salary would jump up by roughly $20,000 per year. Once the cost was fully realized, support for consolidation in that area quickly vanished. Problem2: Without StateHelp, DistrictsCouldn’t Afford It The General Assembly, of course, has the ability to rewrite Sen. Tom Cullerton’s bill, HB 3053, proposed creating a 20-person task force that would identify no less than 25 percent of school districts in Illinois that would be required to hold a referendum to consolidate in the next general election. The legislation scrapped the incentive program for districts forced to consolidate, meaning those schools could have been on the hook to cover possible salary equalization. How any district would have been able to afford the likely salary increases is unclear. The discussion never reached that point, and the bill stalled in the Senate after clearing the House. Another forced consolidation bill was filed in October. Sen. Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, introduced SB 2276 that states high school and elementary districts must form new unit districts within three years. The legislation (a mere 140 words long) directs ISBE to make recommendations on which school districts to consolidate. It doesn’t address the incentive program. What also is not fleshed out in either proposal is what the tax rate for the new unit district would be. the law and scrap the incentive program. That’s exactly what was proposed last fall.

without it, consolidation of elementary and high school districts is probably not financially feasible. That’s because state statute dictates that existing collective bargaining

Click here to see all four incentives.

agreements districts have with teachers and non-certified staff are dissolved when the two districts consolidate, forcing the newly-formed board and superintendent to negotiate new contracts for everyone. What happens naturally is the union representing teachers on the lower wage scale gravitates to the higher wage scale. While every contract negotiation is different, it is unlikely any union would ever agree to separate wage scales. In fact, the Illinois State Board of Education makes its calculations about

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LM January 2020