By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Two weeks after Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn announced that the states Fiscal Year 2011 state spending plan would not include the $3 million line item in the state budget for agricultural education in schools, ag education officials and school districts that offer ag-related courses are still hopeful that some funding can be restored before the bell rings for the start of fall classes.

“Right now, as far as we know the ag end line item is at zero funding,” said Frank Dry, associate executive director of the Illinois Assoc. of Vocational Ag Teachers, when contacted Friday, July 9. “Unless the governor’s office does something (ag programs) will receive nothing.”

Dry explained that the elimination of the ag education line item from the state budget – part of a total of $70.5 million in Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) grants that were eliminated – will affect all aspects of agricultural education.

“The major (cuts) will be to Facilitating Coordination of Agricultural Education (FCAE). It would eliminate all of the individual FCAE field advisors and their offices that help agricultural education at all levels. Incentive funding for all high schools with ag departments in Illinois would be eliminated,” said Dry.

Money provided by the state for school ag program directors to purchase greenhouse equipment, computers, tools and other essential items would disappear, as would grants for agriculture literacy programs.

“Money for ag education training institutes that prepare ag teachers through incentive funding would no longer be available,” Dry said. “The elimination of the ag end line item is a major, major development that will greatly affect ag education here in Illinois.”
Josh Olsen, superintendent for Fieldcrest High School – which encompasses the rural towns of Minonk, Dana, Rutland and Wenona in central Illinois – said that news of how the budget drama will play out is “so fluid” that school officials are having a hard time establishing their own budget for the coming school year.
“We have no idea how it will end up since the governor has been given complete authorization to direct lump sums as he sees fit. It’s a challenge to put together a budget for a fiscal year because we still have no idea what line item amounts we’re going to be getting from the state,” said Olsen, who is beginning his first year as a high school superintendent.

On July 7, the Illinois General Assembly granted Quinn the authority to tap from over $9 million out of the state’s general revenue fund to restore partial-to-full funding for selected ISBE line item-supported programs.

“Of course most of the agricultural related programs and Illinois Department of Agriculture funding was reduced and will be competing for the lump sum ag appropriation,” stated the Illinois Farm Bureau’s director of state legislation, Kevin Semlow, in his July 8 State House Quick View column posted on the IFB’s website. “The challenge with the lump sum appropriation is that the total balance available is less than the amounts being requested by each of the affected programs.”

Though the ISBE sent a letter to the governor requesting that FCAE be considered for part of the discretionary lump sum funding from the state’s general revenue fund, the state has yet to respond to the request.

“We anticipate that the decision of how the lump sum appropriation will be allocated will be included in the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget analysis and review to be conducted this month,” Semlow said.

Until then, ag education officials and school budget-makers such as Olsen are in limbo as to whether or not any state money will arrive to continue ag education – along with many other important programs such as special education.

“We still have no idea about any of our categorical payments and any of the grants,” said Olsen. “We know to the penny what we’ll receive from the district’s taxpayers, but state funding is another story.

Olsen said the state already owes Fieldcrest some $800,000 in reimbursables from the past two school years.

Dry said that FCAE will continue in a holding pattern until Quinn makes public his intentions regarding the $9 million available from the general revenue fund. “We’re continuing to work with the governor’s office, and hope that he will be able to use some of his discretionary funds to at least provide some funding for agricultural education this year,” Dry said. “This is a concern for a lot of people.”

While Dry is not entirely optimistic about the chances of Quinn restoring some funding for ag education this fiscal year, he sounds even less so regarding the future.

“Without some increase in revenue at the state level, it’s going to be tough for (legislators) to come up with any kind of a balanced budget and do much more than what they are doing this year,”he said.

29,048 students were enrolled in agricultural education programs in Illinois schools in 2009, according to FCAE. Of those, 35 percent were female and 90 percent did not hail from a farming background.