State legislators have passed a bill – thanks to student-led efforts – on April 22 that will provide $600 million to colleges and universities, $160 million for MAP (Monetary Award Program) grants and $74 million for community colleges, said Paula Amenta, Elgin Community College’s managing director of legislative affairs.

According to Vice President of Business and Finance Sharon Konny, ECC will be expecting to receive $1.4 million to reduce the overall deficit. This amount will be 27 percent of the operating grant that was expected to be issued by the State of Illinois to the college at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Student President Matt Duron said this short-term financial aid was in reaction to the struggling institutions all over the state that have had to lay off staff or cut programs, due to the 10-month budget impasse. These include Chicago State University, Prairie State College, Western Illinois University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Amenta and Duron both said that this deal, and Gov. Bruce Rauner’s approval, was a response to a student-driven rally that took place in the Illinois State Capitol on April 20, two days before the bill passed.

According to Duron, around 25 ECC students and four faculty members participated in the rally. The trip was supported by the ECC teacher’s union and student life. He said of the total students that traveled, a majority was from student government; but included three from Phi Theta Kappa and the new Student Trustee Diego Gonzalez.

Duron said the yearly Springfield trip is usually primarily made by student government for Student Advocacy Day, which lies in the third week of April; when lobbyists come to Springfield in order to help push for certain legislation. The proposal to invite ECC students this year was new for him.

“The idea to bring students there came after we did our town hall meeting when some pretty good questions were asked [about] what would the school do to support higher education and what can we do,” Duron said.

According to Duron, dozens of Illinois schools have already banded together to protest at Springfield.

“Northern Illinois University actually started what they call the “Budget Cuts Mean Us” Coalition, and they rally two dozen schools with various numbers of representatives from each school,” Duron said. “Dominican University came by, SIU, U of I, a lot of big schools and community colleges of course. I heard there were some students from College of DuPage, some students from Harper, Aurora – just a lot of different schools.”

Duron said the group had the objective that day to speak personally with legislators that were available. Their plan was to split in two – one would go to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate to ask a few questions. They were expecting to speak to representatives Anna Moeller and Michael Noland.

He said this was made impossible after the legislators decided to host a closed session.

“I don’t want to say necessarily that it was planned to have them suddenly do a closed session, but whatever the case, that’s what we had to deal with,” Duron said.

The students began the rally sitting underneath a tent with other state college and university students to hear three student speakers discuss the situation facing large and small educational institutions, to boost morale and encourage peaceful action, Duron said. The ECC students and faculty that attended sat near the back of the tent, so when the time came, they could be the first to enter the capitol.

“[One speech] was along the lines of ‘times are changing and the lack of funding can really hurt this generation’s future’,” Duron said. “One of the iconic things that just really stuck with me [was] he kept asking that we chant ‘stand together’ and it was one of those things that, when he said it, it got the whole room going.”

Duron said when the student groups made it into the capitol, the ECC representatives were on the second floor, outside of Rauner’s office. He said as he looked behind them, there were 500 protestors marching. The highlighted chants consisted of “fund my school,” “the students united will never be divided” and “Bruce better have our money.”

“The entire capitol could hear it,” Duron said. “Seeing so many people there – it’s moving. It was like a bunch of soldiers fighting for something they believe in.”

According to Duron, the lobbying and protests made that day put pressure on the state legislators to pass a short-term solution.

“As students here at ECC, we’re stockholders,” Duron said. “Our ideas and the things that we want to happen, can happen, but not just because of one person; it took 500 people.”

According to Amenta, many bills regarding the funding of human services or Adult Basic Education have yet to be passed, and need more support.

Students of the Adult Basic Education program, who are not receiving any state funding, in reaction have sent their voices and perspectives to local state legislators, according to Peggy Heinrich, dean of adult and continuing education development.

“Things like MAP funding have gotten a lot of press; the things like four-year universities and the community colleges,” Heinrich said. “Adult Education funding is in the state budget, and right now what just even passed in Springfield, the bill that passed to release some money, did not include Adult Education.”

Heinrich said when the state-issued grant never arrived, ECC agreed to cover the undeceived $800,000 for this fiscal year to keep the program running.

According to Amenta, in September the letter-writing campaign was started. By October, around 300 Adult Education students from the program wrote letters to state legislators that have portions of ECC’s service district. The letters talked about the value the program has on their education and work opportunities. She said the letters were sent to 10 state representatives and seven state senators. A pack of all the letters were delivered to each representatives’ and senators’ Springfield and district offices.

Heinrich said the concrete idea came from the program’s administrative team. It was not until she discussed the issue with Fred Crespo, who represents the 44th District in the Illinois House of Representatives that includes Streamwood and Hanover Park, when she became determined to execute the plan.

“I was informing him of the situation for Adult Education and [Crespo] did not know,” Heinrich said. “He said ‘I don’t think any of the legislators know what’s going on with Adult Ed.’”

Crespo was unaware of this issue and urged Heinrich to increase the awareness of the problem, she said.

According to Heinrich, the program provides continuing education courses to 2,600 students a year. The biggest program is English as a Second Language. These courses are free for students, because a majority of them are non-native English speakers who are unemployed or under-employed district residents. ECC has one of 86 state-funded Adult Education programs in Illinois.

According to Amenta, due to the impasse, some of those programs, such as YWCA Elgin and Literacy Connection, have had to suspend adult and children education and literacy programs.

Heinrich said the program is funded by a combination of federal and state money that must match each other: referred to as Maintenance of Effort. This year, the program was released around $500,000 from the Illinois Adult Continuing Education Association, which was federal dollars. She said the state was then supposed to match that with $800,000; but since that was never released, the federal funding will be further jeopardized.

“That’s what I wanted the representatives to understand,” Heinrich said. “If you don’t get something passed to release Adult Education funding, then you’re giving up all this federal money.”

In one letter, Alexis Lopez, a recent graduate of the Accelerating Opportunity Program, wrote that without Adult Basic Education she would not be chasing an Associates of Applied Science in welding fabrication.

“If these programs were to stop, yes, I would have the luxury of building a better life for myself, but this isn’t about me anymore,” Lopez wrote. “It’s about the people after me, and their desire to learn but have a fear of going to the big college. These programs help us ease in to the community college life.”

According to Amenta, responses were received by ECC from Representatives Michael W. Tryon, Christine Winger and Robert W. Pritchard.

“The response was that they’re aware that this is a critical issue and that they are working either behind the scenes or in some manner trying to help,” Amenta said. “What we hear far and away is that they’re all supportive of higher education – they’re all supportive of ECC.”

Amenta said ECC students have also been reacting to the impact of human services that the budget impasse has created. She said many of the health and human service programs and organizations relied on state funding that was not provided this year.

According to Amenta, programs going unfunded due to the impasse include after-school programs for children, teen parent services, autism services, breast and cervical cancer screenings and homeless supportive housing and assistance.

“There are many, many people in our community that need services,” Amenta said. “Organizations like [United Way of Elgin] help members of our community.”

According to Emma Soroka, a member of United Students of All Cultures, the student organizations USAC and ASPIRE came together this year to raise $21,398 to fund United Way; compared to last year’s campaign that accumulated $2,620. The organization helps neighborhood associations, local schools, faith-based groups and more early-education related programs.

Soroka said USAC’s president and vice-president attended board meetings featuring ECC’s faculty and trustees to engross more funds for the United Way Campaign. She said the donations were filled on a form by faculty and trustee members.

“We tabled out in the B hallway every day, Monday through Thursday, from the beginning of April to [April 21],” Soroka said. “We had a 50/50 raffle where half the money goes to the winner and half the money goes to United Way.”

According to Amenta, on a daily basis, she has to monitor the activity and inactivity regarding the impasse. Then relay that information to other faculty and staff members.

“The inactivity is that we’re 10 months into this and there’s no budget. The activity is all of the attempts, conversations, speculations,” Amenta said. “I probably have four or five different news feeds that I monitor, and some of them send out multiple things a day. If I could predict the outcome of this – I would probably buy a lottery ticket.”