SPRINGFIELD – While Gov. Bruce Rauner took to TV news this evening to deflect blame for the state budget stalemate, Senator Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) noted that the Senate passed the governor’s balanced budget and his requested reforms in May – all of which await approval in the House.

“I didn’t hear much from the governor this evening that I haven’t heard before. I think that when all was said and done, this address of his was little more than an opportunity for him to get free, unchallenged time on the evening news all over Illinois,” Harmon said.

“Now that this ‘unity’ address is out of the way, I invite Gov. Rauner to take up the balanced budget and reforms – his balanced budget and reforms – that the Senate passed and sent to the House. This is the appropriate starting point for budget negotiations during the next 10 days and the most efficient way to get us to a resolution.”

High-poverty suburban school districts, shortchanged for decades under Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation education funding formula, could see a significant influx of funding to level the playing field with wealthier suburban districts under a landmark school funding reform measure that passed in both houses of the legislature this week.

“I proudly joined my colleagues in the General Assembly in voting for Senate Bill 1, which acknowledges the urgent need to reform Illinois’ terrible method of funding public schools, while offering property tax relief and ensuring no schools see a loss of funding in the process,” said Senator Don Harmon (D-Oak Park).

“Combined with passage of a balanced state budget that fully funds public schools, I believe this is the single most-significant statewide anti-poverty measure the legislature will pass this spring. I urge Gov. Rauner to sign it into law as soon as it lands on his desk.”

Senate Bill 1 has strong support from thousands of school administrators, superintendents, principals, educators, taxpayers and advocates for fair school funding. Illinois’ school funding formula has not been updated in more than 20 years and is considered one of the worst in the nation because it relies so heavily on local property wealth.

An analysis of Illinois State Board of Education figures released estimates this week by Funding Illinois’ Future – a coalition that advocates for school funding reform – shows potential funding increases for local school districts under Senate Bill 1, an evidence-based model that accounts for factors such as students with disabilities, English language learners and low-income students.

It also provides extra support for the neediest districts in the quest for adequate funding, and it offers property tax relief.

No school district would receive less funding under Senate Bill 1 than they have received under Illinois’ current school funding formula.

The estimated overall gain some area school districts would experience under the Funding Illinois’ Future analysis of SB1 based on FY17 funding levels:

• Maywood-Melrose Park-Broadview District 89 — $3.07 million
• Berkeley School District 87 — $1.47 million
• Bellwood School District 88 — $1.14 million
• Proviso Township High School District 209 — $414,068
• Addison District 4 — $369,418
• Elmwood Park District 401 — $332,095
• River Grove District 85-5 — $287,483
• Oak Park Elementary District 97 — $182,460
• DuPage High School District 88 — $125,465

In addition, under Senate Bill 1, high-tax school districts are eligible for property tax relief up to 1 percent of their EAV. Estimated property tax relief for two area school districts:

• Berkeley School District 87 — $657,853
• Proviso Township High School District 209 — $6.74 million

To review the Funding Illinois’ Future analysis, visit fundingilfuture.org.

Rehabilitated constituent, now a doctoral student, turned down for job because of criminal record

Quintin Williams has a dynamite resume, one that many employers would shuffle to the top of the pile of applicants.

The fourth-year Loyola University student is earning a doctorate degree in sociology. He teaches as part of his fellowship, and his students – his “kids,” as he calls them – give him overwhelmingly positive evaluations for his work in the classroom. He is 33 years old, married and has a 4-year-old son.

But following a recent interview for a teaching position, he learned he wouldn’t be hired because “they didn’t want their students to be influenced by ‘someone like me,’” he recalled Wednesday.

That’s because Williams is forever bound to a record for crimes he committed as a teenager and in his early 20s – crimes that he acknowledges were wrong and for which he paid his debt to society.

Since then, thanks in large part to his faith and to the countless people who saw potential in him along the way, Williams has dedicated himself to his work, his studies and his family. He’s stayed out of trouble, worked several jobs, earned college degrees and participated in anti-violence efforts.

“It just hurt my feelings,” Williams said of the sting of the words “someone like you” when he was turned down for the teaching job. “I thought, they don’t even know me. Did they read the evaluations my kids wrote or about the impact I had on their lives? I take my job seriously.”

Senator Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat, believes it is unfair for every adult who committed crimes as youth to be denied employment, housing and educational opportunities for the rest of their lives. He sponsored legislation that makes it easier for people to have certain arrests sealed by a judge in Illinois, thereby eliminating an unnecessary, unfair, lifetime barrier to those opportunities. The measure passed in the Senate Tuesday and will go to the governor’s desk.

“We’re not letting just anybody seal any criminal record. We’re creating a process by which somebody can go to court and request their records sealed, and a judge will make that determination,” said Harmon, who is Williams’ state senator.

“It goes against the whole idea of paying your debt to society that we have barriers that shackle men and women to a document that forever deprives them of employment, housing and education that enables them take care of themselves and their families.”

The National Employment Law Project estimates, using U.S. Department of Justice statistics, that 42 percent of Illinois adults have a criminal record, whether it’s an arrest or some other brush with the law.

Rep. Camille Lilly (D-Chicago) sponsored the legislation in the House. It is an initiative of The Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois, which includes the Heartland Alliance, Cabrini Green Legal Aid, the Community Renewal Society, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and the FORCE Project (Fighting to Overcome Records and Create Equality).

Williams thanked Harmon and Lilly for being consistent champions of the initiative and shepherding it through the General Assembly. He said he intends to petition a judge to seal his record should the legislation be signed into law by the governor. He just started a new job as a workforce research and policy fellow with the Heartland Alliance, and his career plans include policy and human services work combined with teaching.

“This bill will give me opportunities without facing the stigma of something I did long ago,” Williams said. “And it will help thousands of other people who are way more talented than me and better than me in many ways by giving them opportunities to give back to the world, as well.”

Pictured above: Quintin Williams meets with State Senator Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield on Tuesday, May 30.

Senator Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) issued the following statement today (May 30) regarding his votes on a pair of property tax freeze measures taken up by the Illinois Senate:

Nobody likes paying property taxes. They’re unfair, they’re too high and they’re a burden. Don’t forget the reason why our property taxes are so high – we have an outdated tax system that ties local funding to property wealth. Property taxes pay for our schools, sidewalks, sewer lines, firetrucks, police cars, playgrounds, libraries and community colleges. Freeze local property taxes, and you freeze money for local services. That’s OK if it’s what local taxpayers want to do.

The Senate voted today to give local taxpayers two years to take a property tax freeze for a test drive and see if they like the results. If they do, we can take another vote in the General Assembly. The governor wanted a permanent freeze, but two years is a compromise that attempts to find a middle ground without causing permanent harm to schools and local governments.

I supported two bills in the Senate today to freeze property taxes because that’s what my constituents have told me they want and because Gov. Rauner has indicated that doing so will help move him toward a budget resolution. But let me be perfectly clear: the way to bring down Illinois’ skyrocketing property taxes isn’t a freeze that ties the hands of school districts and village halls. We need to adopt a fair income tax system in which people with lower incomes pay lower income taxes rates and people with higher incomes pay higher tax rates. Then we need the state to live up to its obligation to fund schools so that they aren’t so heavily reliant upon local property taxes.

In short, a fair income tax coupled with fair school funding reform is the answer to Illinois’ property tax woes. I look forward to Gov. Rauner throwing his enthusiastic support behind both.

Illinois would halt bobcat hunting in most northern counties for two years to allow time for more scientific research about the animal’s population under legislation approved by the state Senate Monday, May 29.

House Bill 3399 was sponsored by Senator Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) and was the result of lengthy negotiations among Harmon, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Trappers Association.

“I am pleased that we were able to work with DNR and the trappers to set aside time for collecting more information about the bobcat population in the northern part of the state. We have quite a bit of information about the animals in southern Illinois, but we would like to know more about their habits and movements up north,” Harmon said.

“Ultimately, our goal is to make sure the bobcat population is strong enough to withstanding hunting and trapping statewide so that these animals don’t end up back on Illinois’ threatened species list.”

House Bill 3399 places a two-year ban on bobcat hunting and trapping in most counties in the Northern Illinois Hunting Zone, except for counties in the west and northwest portion of Illinois along the Mississippi River.

During the two-year ban, limits will be placed on the number of bobcats that can be taken in the Southern Zone and in the exempted counties. A maximum of 350 will be allowed during the 2017-2018 hunting season, and 375 will be allowed during the 2018-2019 season.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources issued 500 bobcat permits statewide during Illinois’ first bobcat hunting and trapping season since the 1970s, which ended Jan. 31. The top harvest counties were in the southern half of the state: Pike, Jackson, Jefferson, Carroll and Randolph counties.

House Bill 3399 previously passed in the House and now goes to the governor’s desk.