The Illinois General Assembly passed -- and Gov. Bruce Rauner signed -- a stopgap budget Thursday which included larger-than-usual funding for public schools.
Specifically, it provides a full year of funding for kindergarten through high school, as compared to just half a year for colleges and universities.
Winnebago-Boone Regional School Superintendent Lori Fanello says all of her districts, including Rockford public schools, appreciated the appropriation. But she says her smaller districts were particularly grateful, as they were only operating on six months’ worth of reserves.
“They’d barely get the full year done if they didn’t get something extended from December until June 30 of next year,” she said.
Despite the year of funding, Dr. Fanello says the stopgap measure is only a temporary solution. In her opinion, the key is reforming exactly how schools are funded.
“If we don’t change the funding formula, just doing these quick end-of-the-session agreements is not going to get us where we need to be,” she said.