In the News

Triblocal.com, August 4, 2009

School districts serving the Great Lakes Naval Base could get a boost of federal aid to help pay the cost of educating students from military families.

A district with at least 30 percent of its students from military families normally qualifies for assistance or heavy-impact aid, according to U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, (R-Ill.).

The naval base in North Chicago, through a public-private venture, is providing housing for its families up to 2 miles from the base. This makes it difficult for the school districts involved to qualify for needed aid because the individual districts can't meet the 30 percent threshold.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Ill.), wants to extend an amendment that he drafted in 2008, making it possible to aggregate students from several such school districts in order to qualify.

The extension would allow five school districts from North Chicago, Highland Park, Highwood and Glenview to pool their students, which in the past prevented the North Chicago school district from losing its heavily impacted status, and the other surrounding districts from losing increased funding.

The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved the amendment, but it still has to go to the Senate for a vote, Kirk said. The House bill doesn't provide for an extension; the Senate's version does. A joint conference committee will meet in mid-to-late fall to reconcile the two versions, he added.

Highland Park Mayor Michael Belsky said he is optimistic the amendment will pass, but the communities would be ready to lobby for it as they had in the past.

"It couldn't come at a better time," Belsky said. "[A] tax increase (an alternative) would be difficult in this economy."

U.S. Sen. Susan Garrett, (D-Ill.), said without impact aid, the districts would be in "major financial trouble," and raising taxes, merging districts or even filing for bankruptcy would be solutions.

"In this economic environment where people are having a hard time paying their own property tax bill, to add to that in some way would be extremely difficult," Garrett said. "We take what we can get, which is really never enough, but without that it would be disaster. It is a band-aid. If [we] don't have a band-aid we'll have an open wound."

Funding is not on par with what the costs really are, Garrett said.

"It's not the fault of any of the schools or military families," Garrett said. "It's how we rely on property taxes to fund the schools."

Other states and school districts rely on other sources, she said.

The federal government has a formula for how much it will pay, but it doesn't fill the funding gap, Garrett added. Knowing what the costs are, they-the federal government- should be looking at what the real cost is and replenish those costs back to the districts, she said.

Districts have to "rob Peter to pay Paul to make ends meet," Garrett said.

Garrett and Belsky said they would like to see a more permanent solution.

"I feel that we have to beg for it-that seems unfair," Garrett said. "I think the federal government should take a long look at this and have an automatic line item in budgets for all school districts that educate military students."

Belsky said he would like to see these students fully funded because these are the people that put their lives on the line for the country. He said all Americans should support them.

Glenview Village President Kerry Cummings said she "looks forward to the day it becomes a permanent revenue stream."

She said it's one piece in the puzzle of making the school districts whole.

Kirk has a bill in sub-committee that could make the current aid allowances permanent.

By Blair Chavis|Triblocal.com reporter