Thank you for your interest in signing Sen. Murphy's #STOPSB16 petition. In order to make the petition more accessible, we have moved Sen. Murphy's petition to his website. To sign the petition, please copy and paste the following link into your browser to sign the petition on his website: http://www.senatormattmurphy.com/Resources/SenateBill16Petition.aspx

We apologize for any inconvenience. We value your support, and encourage you to circulate this petition among friends and family. As a collective voice we can have the greatest impact!

Legislation has been introduced and is moving through the General Assembly that would dramatically change the way the state funds public education in Illinois. As currently drafted, Senate Bill 16 will have a direct and negative impact on northwest suburban Cook County schools by diverting millions in General State Aid for Education away from local school districts to other districts in Illinois.

Senator Matt Murphy, Representative David Harris, and Representative Tom Morrison believe suburban legislators, regardless of party, need to stand together in support of suburban schools and property taxpayers. They recognize that suburbanites fund their schools primarily through the high property taxes they pay. They also recognize that suburbanites send more money in income taxes down to Springfield than our area gets back in state benefits, especially since the passage of the 67% income tax increase in 2011. Given these facts, Senator Murphy and Representatives Harris and Morrison oppose Senator Manar's SB16 proposed cuts of up to 90% of suburban schools' state funding and call on all suburbanites to oppose it as well.

In addition to signing the petition, we ask you contact your state representative and state senator personally to express your concerns about this measure and ask them to sign this petition and vote “No" on Senate Bill 16.

What is Senate Bill 16?

Last July, a committee of state legislators was charged with recommending ways to improve public education funding in Illinois, which has remained unchanged since 1997. Despite the bipartisan efforts of the committee, Democrat lawmakers unilaterally acted to draft SB 16, legislation that failed to incorporate many of the committee’s recommendations and which does not address the glaring inequities in how education is funded in Illinois.

If enacted into law, SB 16 will make sweeping changes in how the state funds education. Generally, school districts with higher assessed property values, like ours, will receive much less state funding. Other districts will receive much more in state funding.

SB 16 is a redistribution of current state resources that dramatically changes the way in which limited state funding is distributed among school districts.

How will SB16 impact suburban Cook County?

As a whole, SB16 would phase out a total of $70.8 million from northwest suburban Cook County schools. All 12 school districts located across northwest suburban Cook County will lose upwards of $1 million dollars. Of those 12 schools, 7 districts will have their funding cut by more than $5 million. Six suburban Cook County school districts will lose more than 70% of state funding.

This will result in cuts to arts and sciences, after-school and extra-curricular programs, and salary cuts or layoffs for teachers and faculty.

Suburban property taxpayers will be asked to once again dig in their pockets to supplement the loss in state funding.

What can you do?

SB16 has already passed the Senate. It is expected that the House will vote on SB16 this fall or during the January "lame duck" session.

We need your help.

Please contact your Illinois Representative to voice your opinion. Northwest suburban Cook County is served by the following State Representatives:

Representative David Harris, District 53, (224) 764-2440, repharris@yahoo.com

Representative Thomas Morrison, District 54, (847) 202-6584, repmorrison54@gmail.com

Representative Fred Crespo, District 44, (630) 372-3340, fred@fredcrespo.com

Representative Michelle Mussman, District 56, (847) 923-9104, staterepmussman@gmail.com

Representative Elaine Nekritz, District 57, (847) 229-5499, enekritz@repnekritz.org

Please contact your Senators to voice your opinion.

VOTED NO - Senator Julie Morrison, District 29, (847) 945-5200

VOTED YES - Senator Dan Kotowski, District 28, (847) 656-5414

Visit the General Assembly website for the Senate Bill 16 roll call: www.ilga.gov