{"id":340743,"date":"2010-02-19T17:48:10","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T22:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/illinoiseducationassociation.org\/?p=5994"},"modified":"2010-02-19T17:48:10","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T22:48:10","slug":"capitol-report-for-february-19-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/340743","title":{"rendered":"Capitol Report for February 19, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Capitol Buzz…<\/h2>\n

IEA Director of Government Relations Jim Reed is encouraging IEA members to tell the man in charge of the state budget their stories about the RIFs and program cuts that are threatening districts statewide. You can email Gov. Quinn<\/a>, tell your story and try impact the budget the he will unveil next month.<\/p>\n

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Responsible Budget Coalition rally<\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/p>\n

Members rally at the Rotunda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Thousands of Illinoisans flooded the Statehouse rotunda Wednesday with a single message \u201cWe can\u2019t wait for a responsible budget\u201d in a rally sponsored by the Responsible Budget Coalition. IEA is a coalition member.\u00a0 The crowd heard from more than a dozen speakers who called on the General Assembly to face up to the revenue problems that are forcing cuts in state services for children, the sick and the elderly and causing schools statewide to threaten thousands of employees with layoffs. The General Assembly must pass a responsible budget with real new revenues this spring. Delay is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

IEA President Swanson\u2019s spoke at the rally. See a video of his comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

IEA members are urged to contact their state legislators<\/a> and push them to support a responsible budget that would preserve education quality and save jobs for public education employees statewide.<\/p>\n

Please come to the IEA Lobby Day, slated for April 21<\/a>. Our members need to show up in mass numbers to show legislators that we demand education be funded and that we need them to show leadership in getting it.<\/p>\n

Grassroots activists gather<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This weekend more than 120 IEA grassroots political activists (GPAs) will be meeting to learn more about upcoming federal issues like the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization and state school funding and pension issues.<\/p>\n

Unfunded mandates<\/h2>\n

HB 4711<\/a> (Eddy, R-Hutsonville) would allow school districts to opt out of unfunded mandates. IEA supports fully funding mandates, but not funding some by cutting others. So, IEA opposes the bill. It passed a House committee 13-5-1. Please see the IEA position on Unfunded Mandates<\/a> here.<\/p>\n

Interfund transfers<\/h2>\n

HB 4780<\/a> (Chapa LaVia, D-Aurora) extends the time period to June 20, 2013 during which non-Chicago school districts can transfer money from specified funds for any purpose. IEA supports. It passed out of a House committee unanimously.<\/p>\n

Higher Education<\/h2>\n

HB 4706<\/a> (Winters, R-Shirland) eliminates tuition discount for university employees\u2019 kids. IEA opposes. Bill in rules committee)<\/p>\n

SB 416, Senate Amendment #1<\/a> (Cullerton, D-Chicago) allows several state universities to borrow funds, secured by future tuition revenues and state appropriations.\u00a0 IEA supports.\u00a0 The bill is on third reading.<\/p>\n

SB 3532<\/a> (Trotter, D-Chicago) and HB 6162<\/a> (Currie, D-Chicago) allow retirees from City Colleges of Chicago to receive benefits under the College Insurance Program. The measure triples contributions of all full-time active community college faculty and staff.\u00a0 IEA opposes. Bill in rules committee.<\/p>\n

HJR 93<\/a> (Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates) makes the Illinois Board of Higher Education complete a report by June 1 to determine whether performance-based funding is feasible for community colleges and universities.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next<\/h2>\n

Both the House and Senate will be in session Tuesday through Thursday next week. The majority of their time will be spent hearing bills in committee.\u00a0 The Senate\u2019s deadline for substantive bills to be voted out of committee is March 5, while the House\u2019s deadline is March 12.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s budget address has been rescheduled to March 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Capitol Buzz… IEA Director of Government Relations Jim Reed is encouraging IEA members to tell the man in charge of the state budget their stories about the RIFs and program cuts that are threatening districts statewide. You can email Gov. Quinn, tell your story and try impact the budget the he will unveil next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}