Driver's ed fees: The hidden tax
State letting districts raise
charges above costs for program
By Diane Rado
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 15, 2006
While parents have been paying hefty increases in
driver's education fees to their schools, state officials have
been siphoning millions of dollars from a special fund that is
supposed to help pay for driving instruction and keep fees
affordable.
What's more, the Tribune has found that the state is allowing
most Chicago-area districts to bypass rules that limit how much
they can collect. And local officials are using extra driver's
education fees to bolster school budgets in what amounts to a
hidden tax.
For example, Palatine's High School District 211 collected
$473,731 in fees from parents in 2003-04, the most recent state
figures show, though it spent only $71,443 that year on
textbooks, gas, insurance, cars and other driver's education
equipment. Arlington Heights' High School District 214 collected
$290,521 from parents but incurred only $54,011 in similar
costs. At the time, the districts charged $260 and $250,
respectively, for driver's education.
Both districts have since raised fees to $350 per student.
State law requires driving instruction and caps fees at $50, but
eight of every 10 districts offering driving instruction in the
Chicago area have received waivers from state lawmakers to
increase fees, records show.
More than half of those districts have been approved to charge
$300 to $500 per student. Some districts are already at the
maximum, while others increase incrementally.
Elgin's U-46 is allowed to impose the highest fee in the state,
$500, but currently charges $150 per student.
State officials say waiver applications began surging in 2003,
as more districts fell into deficit, voters began rejecting
school tax increases and state funding for driver's education
programs remained flat.
Limit unchanged
The state has not increased the $15.75 million per year for
driving instruction for at least a decade, though costs have
increased substantially for fuel, insurance, cars, equipment and
salaries. The state's driver's education account--funded by
instruction permit fees and motor vehicle fines--has had
surpluses of as much as $3 million per year for several years.
But since 2003, lawmakers and Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office have
taken $13 million out of the account to help offset state budget
deficits, records show.
Driver's education is one of hundreds of special-purpose
accounts that have been tapped to pay general expenses--a
controversial practice that has led to legal challenges. State
Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka has blocked the use of $1.2 million
transferred out of the driver's education fund in 2005 until
legal challenges are resolved, a spokesman said.
Budget hike planned
After the Tribune began asking questions about the driver's
education account, Blagojevich budget spokeswoman Becky Carroll
said the governor intends to recommend an increase in the budget
for driver's education dollars sent to school districts in
2006-07.
"It will be increased to meet more of today's needs," Carroll
said. She also pointed out that money taken out of the driver's
education account in the last several years has helped schools
because it was used in part to boost per student spending.
Brent Johnston, a driver's education instructor active in the
Illinois High School & College Driver Education Association,
said parents are being squeezed unfairly.
"Parents are getting a double whammy here," he said. "The state
reimbursement funding is not where it should be, plus they're
paying higher user fees."
Parents usually go along with fee hikes, Johnston said, because
commercial driving schools usually charge more than public
school programs and because they're often "oblivious to how the
[fee] system works."
State rules prohibit districts from charging parents more than
it costs to operate a driver's education program, exclusive of
district teacher salaries and benefits.
The idea is that tax dollars already cover teacher salaries, and
parents of teens taking driver's education shouldn't have to
subsidize them even more.
But the Illinois State Board of Education quietly has allowed
districts to bypass those rules once the General Assembly
approves their request to increase driver's education fees.
Illinois State Board of Education General Counsel Jonathan Furr
said his agency believes that when lawmakers approve waivers,
they also release districts from rules on how fees are supposed
to be set. That includes the rule against using instruction fees
to cover driver's education teacher salaries and benefits.
The state board's interpretation helps districts immensely,
because if parent fees help cover driver's education salaries,
districts don't spend other tax dollars on those costs. That
frees up money for other programs and helps offset deficits.
A Tribune review of district financial information shows that
nearly 70 percent of the Chicago area districts providing
driver's education in 2003-04 were collecting more in parent
fees than their driver's education costs, exclusive of salaries
and benefits.
School class a bargain
To be sure, driver's education is still a bargain in some
districts. In Chicago, for example, the district still charges
$50. And in Hinsdale's District 86, where Johnston works,
driver's education is free during the school year, though the
district will charge $300 during the summer, starting this year.
In Palatine's District 211, David Torres, associate
superintendent for business, said he was not familiar with the
state rule that prohibits districts from charging driver's
education fees for salaries but stressed that the state allowed
the district to collect those fees. "We checked with the state,
and everything was done correctly," he said.
Torres also said that the $71,443 the district reported to the
state in non-salary driver's education costs for 2003-04 was
probably too low because the district didn't do a detailed
breakdown of those expenses.
A spokeswoman for Niles High School District 219, which charges
a $350 driver's education fee, also said the district
understated the non-salary costs for its driver's education
program. Niles collected $144,347 in fees, compared with $36,234
in non-salary costs in 2003-04.
In Wheaton's Community Unit School District 200, Assistant Supt.
Bill Farley doesn't agree with the rule that prohibits districts
from charging driver's education fees for salaries because "that
is a real cost to us."
Moreover, he said, the district's $250 fee is still less than
what private driving schools in the area charge.
$121,000 profit
The district collected almost $121,000 more in fees than the
cost of its driver's education program, exclusive of salaries
and benefits in 2003-04.
Farley said the state board approved his expense claims, and the
district's application for a fee waiver made clear that the
district was struggling financially.
"We laid all our cards on the table, and we were in a deficit
budget situation," Farley said.
John Hillary, Arlington Heights' District 214 driver's education
coordinator, said he thought he could base parent fees on
driver's education salaries.
Costs for such instruction is high, he said, because his
district keeps class sizes small, which requires more teachers.
Until 2003-04, the state could track whether parents were being
overcharged for driver's education because districts had to
report all their expenses as well as fees.
But as part of Blagojevich's push to reduce school bureaucracy
and paperwork, those claims no longer have to be filed.
Furr said that the paperwork became unnecessary because
districts typically were being reimbursed based on the number of
pupils in the programs and the size of the state budget for
driver's education every year--not their actual expenses.
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drado@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006,
Chicago Tribune
