Winfield super responds to governor's budget cuts

More than six years ago, voters in the Winfield Elementary School District 34 approved higher taxes to pay for school construction. The project was eligible for more than $2 million in state assistance. But that money never came and the local taxpayers have had to eat the entire cost of the project. On an almost annual basis the district and about two dozen others fall victim to political gamesmanship at the Capitol. The authority to spend nearly $150 million to finally pay up was included in the state budget the Illinois House and Senate approved on May 31. But that was among the nearly $1.4 billion in spending Gov. Rod Blagojevich cut this week because the budget was out of balance. Last year, lawmakers similarly included the spending in the budget but the governor ruled it had been added too late for any of the necessary paperwork to be completed and therefore the projects would not be funded.

Adding insult to injury, the governor came up with state money for a southern Illinois district that wasn't even on the waiting list. That district got its state checks (and they apparently cleared) even as the schools on the state's official construction list waited.

That's the CliffsNotes background to know in reading the statement Winfield superintendent Diane Cody sent me regarding the cuts. I couldn't get the full statement in my story for Friday's paper, so here it is:

"After waiting six years, we are extremely disappointed that the construction money promised to us by the state, has once again been removed by the governor from the budget.

We followed all the procedures to obtain these Capital Development funds. We crossed our t’s and dotted our i’s. In 2002 the state told us that we were eligible for the money. We completed our construction. Yet we are still waiting for the money to pay for it. It is hard to understand how both the House and Senate can approve this long-awaited money again this year, only to have the governor take it away once more.

As upsetting as this cut is to the 24 school districts, it is only made worse by learning that the governor has given construction money to the Carterville schools when they were not even on the (school construction) list. I don’t understand how the governor can ignore the promises to the 24 school districts."