Distributed via Email: April 8, 2009

The Illinois State legislature met an important deadline today (Friday) as bills had to be considered in their house of origin by the end of business today. House bills had to be passed by the full House and Senate bills had to be passed by the full Senate in order to remain "alive". Approved bills will now be sent to the opposite chamber where they will go through the same committee and floor process.

Lawmakers will now take a two week break from the Capitol. Upon their return, they will be charged with the tasks of completing a Fiscal Year 2010 budget and the acting on the hundreds of bills that remain viable.

Lawmakers did agree to forward and the governor has signed, a capitol bill and a supplemental appropriation bill. HB 289 (Madigan, D-Chicago) and HB 210 (Madigan, D-Chicago) contain measures to provide a $3 billion transportation capital program and the authorization of $6.7 billion in federal stimulus spending.

In order to get schools paid, the program includes use of funds received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). $963 million will be deposited into the General Revenue Fund. In order to meet federal rules about how Illinois can qualify for this money the Illinois State Board of Education must show a corresponding reduction in FY 09 General Revenue spending and then will replace that spending with ARRA. This action is anticipated to provide the revenues necessary to make payments to schools for the remainder of the year. The backlog to schools has reached the $1 billion mark.

LOCAL REVENUE STABILIZATION BILLS STOPPED

Alliance Report Call to Action (96-1), sent earlier this week asking for action on SB 2126 (Viverito, D-Chicago) and HB 2502 (Turner, D-Chicago) that would have provided a CPI floor of 2%, generated hundreds of calls to House and Senate members in support of these measures. Unfortunately, we were unable to prevail at this time. SB 2126 was voted on late last evening and only received a total of 49 votes out of 59 because many Senators had left for home. HB 2502 was not called for a vote.

Thank you for your efforts in calling and contacting your legislators to support these bills. Our work is not done. Please take some time over the next two weeks, when legislators are at home, to share the real impact of implementing a CPI increase of 0.1%. You can obtain more information from the Call to Action regarding additional data that will explain the school perspective.

 Please also take a minute to look through the many bills that will be heard when the legislature returns for action on April 21, 2009. Because of the number of bills acted on this week, we can only provide a brief description. A more comprehensive description and actual language of bills can be obtained from the Legislative Information Service website cited at the end of this report. Be sure to click on Full Text and Engrossed version to get the amended text of the legislation in its most up-to-date form.

HOUSE BILL ACTION THIS WEEK

At the time of delivery of this report, the House is still in session working on legislation. We will send an additional report next week to report on any additional bills of interest that were not included here. The following bills were approved by the House and were sent to the Senate for consideration.

HB 19 (Flowers) requires the Chicago Board of Education to require that all students wash their hands with soap before consuming any meal at school.

HB 72 (D’Amico, D-Chicago) prohibits a person, regardless of age, to use a wireless telephone in a school speed zone or on a highway in a construction or maintenance speed zone.

HB 163 (Tryon, R-Crystal Lake), as amended, provides that when a public body or awards no-bid work to a contractor, the public body will provide documentation of prevailing wage.

HB 547 (Pihos, R-Glen Ellyn) requires state and local government agencies to develop an identity-protection policy.

HB 628 (Osterman, D-Chicago) requires school districts to provide access for special education student parents, independent educational evaluators, or an expert for the purpose of observation of students in the school setting.

HB 806 (Fortner, R-West Chicago) based upon an assessment of a child’s readiness allows children 6 years of age due to be 7 years by December 31, who have attended a state-certified, private preschool through kindergarten to be enrolled in the first grade.

HB 809 (Fortner) makes clarifying modifications to the process of withdrawal from special education co-operative agreements.

HB 1035 (Flider, D-Mt. Zion) requires school districts to provide instruction on disability history, people with disabilities and the disability rights movement.

HB 1107 (Eddy) for health/life safety repairs, a school district will have the ability to use health health/life safety funds for those repairs that occur because of an emergency.

HB 1197 (Black, R-Danville) validates the tax levies and extensions and the expenditures by St. Joseph Ogden Community High School District 305 for fire prevention and safety purposes.

HB 2386 (Hernandez, D-Cicero) provides that students in J. Sterling Morton HSD 201 complete at least 40 hours of community service in order to receive a high school diploma.

HB 2448 (Miller, D-Calumet City) allows a school district, by resolution, to establish a remote educational program (i.e. an educational program delivered to students in the home or other location outside of a school building).

HB 2547 (Fritchey, D-Chicago) provides for schools and others a place of public accommodation, as defined in the Act: (a) the exercise of free speech, free expression, free exercise of religion or expression of religiously based views by any individual or group of individuals that is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or under Article I of the Illinois Constitution, shall not be a civil rights violation.

HB 2619 (Eddy) allows Martinsville CUSD 3C to issue bonds to acquire and improve a school site and building, equipping a new school building on the site to replace all or a portion of a school building closed by the regional superintendent because of flood damage.

HB 3350 (J. Mitchell, R-Rock Falls) provides that it is a Class 4 felony for a child sex offender to knowingly be present at any school sponsored event unless the offender is a parent or guardian of a student involved with the school sponsored event and the school superintendent or the school board has granted permission for the offender to be present.

HB 3673 (Gordon, J. D-Peoria), when determining Available Local Resources for General State Aid, provides that the Corporate Personal Property Replacement Taxes paid to each district during the calendar year one year (instead of 2 years) before the calendar year in which a school year begins, divided by Average Daily Attendance, shall be added to the local property tax revenues per pupil.

HB 3787 (Tryon, R-Crystal Lake) suspends the requirement that school bus drivers complete an annual refresher course to maintain a school bus driver permit if the driver is on active duty in the military.

HB 4049 (Schmitz, R-Batavia) provides that a person who makes a threat that a bomb or has been placed in a school, whether such threat is true or false, shall be required by the court, in addition to any other sentence imposed, to reimburse the unit of government for the cost of the search for a bomb.

SENATE BILL ACTION THIS WEEK

The following bills were approved by the Senate and were sent to the House for consideration.

SB 43 (Clayborne, D-E. St. Louis) expands the scope of the Prevailing Wage Act to cover all public works projects located in an enterprise zone.

SB 80 (Link, D-Lake Bluff) makes changes to the election code regarding where campaign signage can be placed at polling places.

SB 95 (Harmon, D-Oak Park) creates the Care of Students with Diabetes Act.

SB 153 (Garrett, D-Highwood) requires school districts employing an IMRF board of Trustees member to grant 20 days of paid leave for them to attend IMRF board meetings and seminars. Removes the requirement that the IMRF pay the school district for the substitute needed during the leave.

SB 226 (Martinez, D-Chicago) makes various changes to the Grow Your Own Teacher Education Initiative.

SB 227 (Bomke, R-Springfield) provides for a Tax Increment Financing District extension for Sherman.

SB 235 (Lightford, D-Chicago), an Alliance initiative, affects various aspects of the Illinois Distinguished Principal Leadership Institute.

SB 242 (Sullivan, D-Quincy) provides for a Tax Increment Financing District extension for Macomb.

SB 269 (Demuzio, D-Carlinville) allows for an increase in fees for school bus driver training.

SB 590 (Koehler, D-Peoria) provides for a Tax Increment Financing District extension for East Peoria.

SB 613 (Bond, D-Grayslake) creates the Children’s Low-Cost Laptop Act requiring the ISBE to establish a pilot program for a period of at least 2 years.

SB 1265 (Harmon, D-Oak Park) provides that “public records” under the Freedom of Information Act includes all settlement agreements.

SB 1391 (Clayborne, D-E. St. Louis) requires the State Board of Education to adopt rules to provide standards for the certification of marital and family therapists employed by school boards.

SB 1552 (Pankau, R-Bloomingdale) expands the Senior Citizen Assessment Freeze to include disabled persons.

SB 1553 (Rutherford, R-Pontiac) provides for a Tax Increment Financing District extension for Downs.

SB 1557 (Delgado, D-Chicago) requires the addition to history courses a unit of instruction studying the forceful removal and illegal deportation Mexican-American U.S. citizens.

SB 1559 (Koehler, D-Pekin) requires a school board to only purchase or lease vehicles assembled in the United States that are used for driver’s education courses.

SB 1570 (Pankau, R-Bloomingdale) creates the School Wind and Solar Generation Program to fund wind generation projects and solar generation projects for school districts and community college districts.

SB 1665 (Jacobs, D-Moline) requires the Comprehensive Health Education Program to include information about cancer and requires IHSA to include a question asking whether a student has a family history of cancer on any pre-participation examination form.

SB 1675 (Murphy, R-Palatine) requires all 7^th graders and all high school students enrolled in U.S. History to view the Congressional Medal of Honor film.

SB 1691 (Althoff, R-Crystal Lake) increases the income criteria from $50,000 to $55,000 for access to the Senior Citizens Real Estate Tax Deferral Act and ties the Senior Citizens Assessment Freeze income criteria to this provision.

SB 1718 (Clayborne, D-E. St. Louis) further defines “weapon” for student discipline and provides for the suspension and expulsion action that may be taken by the school district.

SB 1769 (Steans, D-Chicago) adds new requirements regarding a school district’s procedures for applying pesticides to outdoor school property.

SB 1796 (Lightford, D-Maywood) establishes the Illinois Hope and Opportunity Pathways through Education (IHOPE) Program to develop a comprehensive system in this State to re-enroll significant numbers of high school dropouts in programs that will enable them to earn their high school diploma.

SB 1828 (Steans, D-Chicago) a State Board of Education initiative that creates the P-20 Longitudinal Education Data System Act. It requires the ISBE, the Illinois Community College Board, and the Board of Higher Education to jointly establish and maintain a longitudinal data system by entering into one or more agreements that link early learning, elementary, and secondary school student unit records with institution of higher learning student unit records.

SB 1882 (Cronin, R-Elmhurst) establishes a task force to explore and examine all duties of the State Board of Education and regional offices of education in order to determine which duties and responsibilities a regional office of education could more appropriately and efficiently deliver to school districts.

SB 1885 (Hultgren, R-Winfield) provides that a "disruptive student" includes suspension or expulsion eligible students and students against whom juvenile or criminal proceedings alleging the commission of a felony are pending (instead of just suspension or expulsion eligible students).

SB 1956 (Demuzio, D-Carlinville) makes changes with respect to days that are used for an in-service training program for teachers and parent-teacher conferences regarding the compilation of average daily clock hours standard.

SB 1957 (Demuzio, D-Carlinville) makes changes to the requirements and reporting dates for the school breakfast program.

SB 1971 (Dillard, R-Westmont) allows a TRS member to establish optional credit up to 2 years of service for employment by a private school.

SB 1977 (Meeks, D-Chicago) makes numerous changes throughout the School Code to make technical and clarification changes.

SB 1984 (Lightford, D-Westchester) provides that a charter school shall comply with all provisions of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act.

SB 1995 (Wilhelmi, D-Joliet) extends the allowable life of some bonds to 30 years.

SB 2014 (Demuzio, D-Carlinville) provides that a school district shall afford students one opportunity (instead of 2 opportunities) to take the Prairie State Achievement Examination beginning as late as practical during the spring (instead of second) semester of grade 11.

SB 2044 (Kotowski, D-Park Ridge) provides that the electors of any school district may pass, by initiative petition and referendum, a binding ordinance adopting the provisions of the Whistleblower Reward and Protection Act.

SB 2051 (Crotty, D-Oak Forest) if a school district under PTELL approves an increase in its limiting rate, then its General State Aid may not be affected.

SB 2071 (Haine, D-Alton) contains ISBE’s teacher misconduct proposal regarding the reporting and monitoring of teachers convicted of felony offenses.

SB 2119 (Steans, D-Chicago) creates a task force to develop strategies to allow for the innovation, intervention, and restructuring of schools, including those that need comprehensive or focused intervention.

SB 2214 (Garrett, D-Highwood) requires school districts to report annually to the State Board of Education the total expenditures related to providing driver education, including equipment and personnel costs.

SB 2270 (Cronin, R-Elmhurst) requires school districts to annually submit to the ISBE an itemized salary compensation report for every employee holding an administrative certificate.

*The legislative report is written and edited by the lobbyists of the Illinois Association of School Boards to provide information to the members of the organizations that comprise the Statewide School Management Alliance.

General Assembly Bill Text/Status

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