Springfield, IL – The head of the Illinois State Board of Education believes that paying regional superintendents through a local tax is the right way to go.
Regional superintendents have worked without pay for more than four months. Their salaries, as well as the operations budgets for Illinois' 44 regional offices of education, were cut from the budget by Governor Pat Quinn.
Quinn wanted to use a local tax to fund them. But so far he is having trouble convincing lawmakers to go along with the idea. That was clear when a vote on the local tax diversion came up short in the Illinois House.
However, Illinois State Board of Education Chairman Gery Chico said he supports Quinn's concept. He also said he supports the work of done by the offices.
"I can only tell you that the positions of the regional education offices are important to what we do, because otherwise there's no intermediary delivery system between the state board of education and local districts," Chico said.
"So we do need their work. They do good work, they provide good service throughout the state of Illinois."
Chico said he believes the issue will be ironed out.
Thanks to Illinois Public Radio