Teacher negotiations vital to our future

We all know the difficult fiscal situation the state of Illinois has gotten itself into. Most recently schools have been feeling the effect. The state is many months behind payments - many funding state-mandated programs local schools are responsible for.

Apparently, the state is now going to borrow the money to pay the schools. This is like taking out a consumer loan to pay off credit card debts, but not getting rid of the credit cards. In reality, all this will do is push off for another year the problem of how the state meets its commitments to our schools. It is a mess and especially challenging when it comes to constructing our school budgets for the next year or two.

Having said that, I'm afraid all of this might be obscuring an equally important challenge facing many of our local school districts. By far, the greatest expense of any school system is salaries - often as much as 80 percent of the overall budget. Many local school boards are beginning salary negotiations with teacher unions, who represent the majority of those salaries.

The outcome of these negotiations will actually have a far greater impact on the fiscal health of our schools than the state problem - especially in Naperville Unit District 203, where we receive only a few percent of our overall budget from state funds.

Given all the uncertainties surrounding us - not just future state funding, but the overall economy of our community (including a shrinking tax base as valuations decrease) - this is an especially important negotiation. The local schools have much less control over the actions of the state than they do over how they control their own spending. I hope everyone - boards, teachers and other school employees - will take stock of our current situation and act accordingly. The future might depend on it.

Dave Weeks

Naperville Unit District 203 board member