SPRINGFIELD, IL – State Senator John Sullivan (D-Rushville) is keeping a promise he made during last fall’s veto session to make sure a panel studying the role of Regional Offices of Education submits its findings in time to affect next year’s budget. SB 2566, passed unanimously today by the Senate, will require the panel to make its report four months earlier – by April 1, instead of by August 1.

“I made a promise last fall to local units of government and to my colleagues to move the date forward,” Sullivan said. “We need all the facts sooner rather than later – and in time to incorporate them into the budget discussions. We cannot continue to burden local governments with the cost of running the ROEs.”

After Governor Quinn vetoed funding for the Regional Offices of Education (ROEs), including money to pay the salaries of the state’s 44 elected Regional Superintendents, Sen. Sullivan proposed temporarily plugging the budget hole using revenues from the Corporate Personal Property Replacement Tax, a tax that the state collects and then returns to local governments. Sullivan promised that a commission would study the functions of ROEs and Regional Superintendents and propose some long-term solutions to the legislature.

The original legislation gave the panel until August 1 to report back to the General Assembly, but in the course of the debate over that plan, Sullivan determined that deadline would only push the problem off an additional year.

“Using local money to pay the Regional Superintendents and fund their offices was never intended to be a permanent fix,” Sullivan said. “We need to take a long, hard look at whether we need these regional offices, or if the jobs the law asks them to do can be more efficiently handled elsewhere in the public education system.”

The office of Regional Superintendent is established in the Illinois Constitution, and voters in 44 multi-county areas elect a superintendent every four years. Some of the regional superintendents’ duties include certifying teachers and training bus drivers.