The Illinois legislature sent a measure to the governor Friday giving $600 million to community colleges and public universities the first state funding they've seen in almost 10 months. It was a bi-partisan effort to push short-term spending by rank-and-file members frustrated by the budget impasse.
Community colleges and public universities have gone more than nine months with no state funding. But so have social service agencies, which are also having a fiscal crisis. It also included money for tuition waivers for low-income students.
Rep.Jack Franks, D-Marengo, said this emergency spending legislation is only putting off the inevitable.
"So instead of having half measure, instead of doing what we're doing and actually pass a real budget," he said.
Some Democrats voiced concerns about the lack of funding for human services, but the measure did ultimately pass both chambers without the money for human services.
The sponsor was Rep. Rita Mayfield, D-Waukegan. She said the money is emergency funding and not all the support schools should get for this fiscal year or for next fiscal year. Several state universities, such as Western, Eastern, Southern and Chicago State, have laid off hundreds of workers and cut programs. Mayfield and other members of the Legislative Black Caucus said they were very concerned about Chicago State. It's a school that serves a predominantly black student population and had announced it was on the brink of closing because of the lack of state money.
"We are here to celebrate CSU today, but to send a message that we are nowhere close to being done," Mayfield said.
Chicago State got the most amount of funding, which was 60 percent of what Democrats had proposed for the school last year. Other universities will get roughly 30 percent of what they would have received.
Meanwhile, the Senate introduced an emergency spending measure Friday for human services. It can't get a vote from both chambers for a while because the General Assembly is out all next week.?
