State budget delay hard on schools

It's tough enough for administrators, guided by a board of education, to direct a school district's finances when lawmakers finish work on time. When lawmakers go into overtime, it gets harder.

Local school officials are facing vexing times indeed in this summer of discontent.

With leaders from the Illinois House and Senate still wrangling with the governor over spending priorities, recipients of state money are limping by on a one-month budget. That doesn't help the long-range planners who must map out annual school budgets and finish them as soon as possible for a fiscal year that began 22 days ago.

You would think schools would want their budgets finished and approved before the fiscal year begins July 1. Unfortunately, that's not the way things have evolved in Illinois. Some school boards don't see a tentative budget from the administration until August and don't act on it until September, nearly three months into the fiscal year.

Now June and much of July have passed with no state budget in place. School officials are left to monitor competing proposals, estimate how much the state eventually will provide and try to make plans based on those estimates. Guessing how much money the state will provide. It's an imperfect system, to say the least.

Too much green

Green is the new patriotic color in America, clearly a good thing for our planet. But we're troubled by state Treasurer Alex Giannoulias' decision to spend $2 million to encourage hybrid car sales. It appears he's more interested in promoting his career than the common good.

Giannoulias' Green Rewards program offers a $1,000 incentive to hybrid car buyers. He must not have noticed that Illinois can't afford any new programs.

Lawmakers are still trying to put together a budget, weeks after the new fiscal year started. They also considered rebates on hybrid car purchases, but have not enacted any. Presumably that's because they believe the state has more important spending priorities. Giannoulias is doing an end run. He's foregoing some of the interest the state could earn on its deposits to fund his program. His actions are legal, but we'd much rather have that $2 million in the state's coffers.