Posted on 10/03/2009 9:13:19 PM PDT by Graybeard58
PEKIN, Ill. -
Zero — zilch — nada!
That’s how many teachers Pekin District 108 was able to hire or retain because of federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus money that the state gave to school districts in lieu of the usual state aid payments.
The district received $1.9 million in stimulus money as general state aid payments, which is used to pay teacher salaries, pensions, some operations and maintenance costs, and direct instructional expenses, among other things.
Order to revise reports
Pekin District 108 Superintendent Bill Link said the district used the money just as it would have used state aid. While school districts appreciated the funding, they are now being asked to revise reports regarding jobs retained and created by the stimulus money by the Illinois State Board of Education.
“That money didn’t help us create any or retain any jobs,” said Link. “If we had not gotten this money or the regular state aid payments we would have used reserves to make it through.
“We will answer the report with the information we have available — it didn’t create or retain any jobs.”
Illinois State Board of Education spokesman Matt Vanover said the state used the stimulus money to prevent cuts in education at Illinois schools rather than reduce state funding for schools by a $1 billion.
Vanover said the application filled out by the state for the federal stimulus money said the money would be used for a stabilization fund to keep schools from laying off teachers.
“That application was approved by the U.S. Department of Education,” said Vanover. “Districts are not being asked to revise their reports, just to review how they reported it.
“There are more than 900 school districts in the state that receive general state aid. Many of them were misinterpreting what creation and retention meant. This is just a clarification.”
The ISBE e-mail
The e-mail submitted to the state’s public schools tells districts how to revise the reports.
The e-mail says — “In summary, ask the following question: What would have been the impact on jobs if your (district) had not received the final five general state aid payments in FY 2009 and the first GSA payment in FY 2010?”
“Based on this new guidance, please reevaluate your data on jobs created and retained, and resubmit a revised FY 2009 and/or FY 2010 General State Aid (stimulus) expenditure report,” the e-mail said. “IMPORTANT: A revised expenditure report will replace any previous transmission.”
The ISBE told districts that, “In a recent discussion with the United States Department of Education, clarification was provided as to how jobs retained should be reported.”
That’s not consistent with a statement from the U.S. Department of Education.
“From the very beginning, we have made it clear that this education stimulus funding is intended to supplement local education dollars, not replace them,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement to the AP. “When the spending reports are made public in October, states will be held accountable by the public and the department on how they used education funding.”
East Peoria Community High School District 309 Superintendent Clifford Cobert said the stimulus money didn’t create or save positions.
“We couldn’t have reduced any positions,” said Cobert. “Our teaching staff had already been set.
“If the need had (arisen) we would have used our fund balances to meet the need. We didn’t see any increases in our state aid from the state. I submitted the report last week and it showed zero — no jobs created or retained.”
Deer Creek-Mackinaw Community Unit District 701 Superintendent Steve Yarnall said state law requires that teachers be notified by March if they will not be employed for the following school year. He said the stimulus money came in April, so it had no impact on the number of teachers the district retained.
Yarnall said had the need arisen he would have used district reserves to pay teachers. Yarnall said, however, that he will report a new position created this year — a kindergarten teacher was hired because the class sizes would have been larger than 30.
“I think some superintendents may feel like they have been put on the spot,” he said. “But we live in an age of accountability.”
Regional Superintendent of Schools Robin Houchin referred to Duncan’s recent statements regarding the abuse of stimulus money. States that do so may not be eligible for new funding to be distributed soon.
“The auditors will come in,” said Houchin. “I think (districts) spent the money the way they were told to. In our case, if we had not received state aid or the stimulus money — it saved jobs. If we hadn’t gotten that $74,000 we could not have paid our people.”
Welcome to Illinois government, they have done the same thing for years with lottery money which they claim goes to education, yep, it goes to schools but they dropped an equal amount of funding from general fund sources.
Do the hokey pokey, after all.....that's what it's all about!
Money shuffle. The Porkulus funds made it possible for the state to keep what would have been state aid in the treasury paying it out to other pockets... hey! why don’t we call up Bummer on the phone and ask him to call those grifters out! Like he promised!
When I worked for the DoD dependents schools, many contractors had to pay tuition to DoDDS in order for their employees to enroll in the DODDS schools.
That amounted to a tidy sum, say. $10,000 a year. Those funds went not to the individual school or even the local district, but to the agency. So relatively little came back to the school impacted by those civilian employs’ kids. Instead it was spent across the system.
dc schools laid off 300 friday teachers and admins...
How could a school system with that much money get itself into such a fix! But of course, when incompetence is almost a qualification for a job....
The “cherry” deal the teachers have in NY angers me more than anything else.
The Teachers’ Pension Fund is allowed to play the stock market (so far OK); here’s where it gets sticky, any gains they get to keep, any loses are made up by the tax payers.
They have zero incentive to make good decisions and lots of incentive to go for the long shots.
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