August 19, 2016

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois House of Representatives,

99th General Assembly:

Today I return House Bill 5025. The bill would amend the School Code to classify chief administrative officers and assistant administrative officers from educational service centers as regional and assistant regional superintendents. Their salaries would then be funded by the State like regional superintendents of education.

We need to look more broadly at our education bureaucracy and funding system. Illinois is dead last in State support for schools, our property taxes are the highest in the nation, we impose countless unfunded mandates on our schools that divert money from our students and teachers, and we have too many layers of administrative bureaucracy.

We convened the bipartisan School Funding Reform Commission earlier this year to make specific recommendations to reform our funding system. We must also examine our bureaucratic structures and whether we can reduce administrative costs in order to put more money where it belongs: in the classroom. Until then, we should refrain from making these types of changes to our funding system and school bureaucracy.

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return House Bill 5025 entitled “AN ACT education”, with the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner
GOVERNOR