Superintendents Toolkit 2013

Budget/Cost Shift

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Issue:

There appears to be a concerted public relations effort to tie funding for public education, public safety and human services to the pension reform issue. The governor has used the pension issue as the reason he is projecting deep cuts in the FY14 education budget, with some projections calling for GSA to be cut as much as 20 percent or more. The FY13 education funding debate included one proposal by the governor to eliminate Transportation funding. Wrapped up in the pension reform issue is the state’s desire to incrementally shift its portion of the normal pension costs to local school districts. The governor, Speaker Madigan and Senate President Cullerton all have supported the cost shift. The governor has cited a snapshot in time of cash reserves in some school districts to try and make his case that school districts could handle the cost shift.

Talking points:

1. Always try to describe the impact on students in your district as a way to make your points related to budget issues. Use the budget spreadsheet listed on page 7 to present data and to determine the numbers in some of the talking points that follow. 2. The notion that school districts easily can absorb more budget cuts or the state shifting its portion of the pension costs to local districts is just not true. 3. Districts already have had to absorb an 11 percent cut in General State Aid over the past two school years and a 42 percent cut in transportation reimbursement over the past three school years. 4. Districts also have lost Corporate Personal Property Replacement Tax (CPPRT) funding, a total of more than $ XX being lost in (your district) . 5. We already have cut everything we can cut without reducing programs and educational opportunities for our students. 6. Cutting teachers and staff also results in an

unemployment cost because so many districts are making cuts. If laid off teachers and staff cannot find jobs, districts must pay more than half of their salaries in unemployment, meaning you have to cut twice as many people to achieve the savings goal. 7. Consider these facts (if applicable):  We have a deficit operating budget of $ XX this year, meaning we have had to dip into our reserve funds to avoid cutting programs. We already have cut everything we can in order to maintain programs and educational opportunities for our students.  The amount drained from our reserve funds totaled more than $ XX , or more than XX percent of all of our reserve funds.  History shows that once a district begins operating with a deficit budget, the deficits tend to snowball.

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