Dive Brief:

• The small East Prairie School District 73 in Skokie, IL, north of Chicago, is lobbying state legislators to approve a bill that would allow them to surpass their debt limit to build a new school, issuing bonds voters have already approved.
• The Chicago Tribune reports this type of lobbying has resulted in several dozen exceptions to the state’s debt-limit laws for school districts, and in the case of tiny East Prairie, the district has gotten preliminary voter approval to borrow $47.3 million even though its debt limit is $11.9 million, though in asking voters for the money, it didn’t mention the concept of the debt limit.
• The bill, which allows the district to borrow the $47.3 million without having it count against its total debt limit and stretches the repayment period from the usual 20 to 25 years, has passed out of committee and next will go before the state House.

Dive Insight:

School districts in Illinois are in uncertain times as the state legislature and governor have failed to come to a full year’s budget agreement since Gov. Bruce Rauner was elected in November 2014. K-12 districts have largely been shielded from the damage, unlike the state’s public colleges and universities, at least one of which has shut down without expected money from Springfield. K-12 schools, though, have suffered from a lack of forward progress in a state that has been talking about revising its school funding formula for years.

Considering this backdrop, it is surprising districts are being allowed to go so deep into debt. But without money for major infrastructure projects from the state, new buildings in many districts would be impossible without these legislative exceptions.