“Vouchers” in Illinois?

Last updated on: July 1, 2017 at 4:31 pm by Jane the Actuary

“Vouchers” in Illinois? 2017-07-01T16:31:41-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Illinois state capitol; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Illinoiscapitol2.jpg

As locals know, the legislature in Illinois is knee-deep in negotiations to actually pass a budget, finally taking the task seriously because of the deadline imposed by ratings agencies, that is, due to the need to come to some kind of agreement in order to avoid a junk-bond rating. Are Madigan and Rauner finally going to make a deal? I suppose it depends on whether each of them finally believes they need to give in, in order to finally fix the situation, or whether each of them still thinks they succeed in getting the media, and the general public, to blame the other for a failed deal.

(Note that CNN Money describes this as a problem that’s been building up over the long term. I don’t entirely see it that way — if a Madigan pawn had won election to governor, rather than Rauner, they’d likely have solved the budget issue by now. To be sure, they’d have solved it with massive tax increases, but they’d have solved it.)

But this afternoon, I got an e-mail from the Archdiocese of Chicago, presumably sent to all Catholic school families, encouraging us to contact our legislators. The key text is this:

We recently became aware that there are concrete, productive conversations happening in Springfield about a potential state budget. As part of these conversations, tax credits for students/families attending Catholic schools has once again become a possibility. A tax credit program in Illinois would represent a tremendous windfall for Catholic school families as well as our Catholic schools. I cannot understate how such a program would positively change the economics of Catholic education!

The e-mail references a site called Illinois Kids Campaign, which has precious few details, but seems to be related to a campaign in 2015 which provided, not traditional “vouchers” but a tax credit for donations to foundations benefiting public schools (e.g., arts funding) and private schools (scholarships for poor kids or schools in poor neighborhoods), with in each case, a cap for the total tax credit available statewide (how that works isn’t clear to me — at the time of the donation, how would you know if the cap had been exceeded or not?).

At the time, I had mixed feelings: it would be great to give Catholic schools a boost, and, ideally, be a “win” for the state as well, if a scholarship sends a kid to a Catholic school who otherwise would have gone to a public school at a greater expense (rather than just funding families who’d be sending their kids to Catholic schools no matter what). At the same time, though, the state simply didn’t have any excess funds to be doling out.

And that’s even more true now. At a time when the state can’t pay its bills, and social service organizations are going without reimbursement for months on end, I’m really shocked that this is coming up again. It suggests that, despite the seriousness of this crisis, legislators aren’t taking it seriously, but still trying to gain some “wins” with horse-trading, which, however well-intentioned, is still disappointing.

Image: Illinois state capitol; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Illinoiscapitol2.jpg

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