Elizabeth Crider Derry, the Peoria County Regional Office of Education superintendent

Peoria County school officials say the state budget standoff has gone on long enough.

In a blunt letter sent to last week state leaders and legislators, 16 top county educators called for an end to “bickering” and to swiftly approve a compromise measure to fund public education for the 2016-17 school year.

“One thing is absolutely certain,” the education officials wrote. “Without a budget and funding certainty for the coming year we all lose.”

The letter was issued by Elizabeth Crider Derry, the Peoria County Regional Office of Education superintendent, on behalf of local signatories. It was sent to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate president John Cullerton as well as members of the Illinois General Assembly.

A copy was also released to local media.

“Asking the school districts across out county and across out state to open their doors this fall without stable, certain funding is simply unacceptable,” the superintendents said.

The state has entered a second year without a full formal budget after the General Assembly adjourned last month without approving a spending plan. The new state fiscal year begins on July 1.

Some functions of state government continue to operate under court orders and selective budget approvals by Rauner, including funds for general state aid to schools, early childhood education, bilingual education and the teachers retirement system for the 2015-16.

Adding to uncertainties is a proposal to address eduction funding that could reduce funding levels for some suburban and downstate districts while increasing aid to the Chicago Public School system.

“These funding uncertainties have become a significant distraction for our staff, our parents and our communities,” the superintendents wrote. “Hardly a Board meeting or a conversation with a parent or teacher can go by without digressing about the ever-present albatross of state funding.

“As a result, we find ourselves much more frequently reciting the numbers of an uncertain budgetary table than the names of recent graduates and rising student achievers,” the letter continued. “This conversation always leads to the same question: Will you open your doors in August?”

Superintendents pledged to open schools as scheduled “not because of any guarantee of an education budget from the State,. but because of our obligation to our kids and our communities.”

Separately, 15 superintendents from around the state ranging from Chicago and suburbs to downstate district also wrote to Rauner complaining that the current state funding formula is inadequate and warned that some districts may not be able to open this fall.

“This is a disaster that plagues districts across Illinois; it is not a Downstate vs. Chicago, or city vs. suburban issue, but rather a statewide problem,” the superintendents wrote in a letter sent earlier this month. “And as superintendents of school districts whose students will suffer the gravest consequences, it is our shared concern.”

— Peoria regional school leaders demand stable school funding —