Madison County Treasurer to Expedite Payments to Help Local Schools

Chris Slusser
MADISON COUNTY TREASURER
157 N. Main St., STE. 125
EDWARDSVILLE, IL  62025-1963
(618) 692-6260

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 14, 2017

Madison County Treasurer to Expedite Payments to Help Local Schools

EDWARDSVILLE – Madison County Treasurer Chris Slusser announced today that his office will begin expediting property tax distributions in September to help local school districts, at least temporarily, to avoid any funding crisis.

Slusser said that his office will make two distributions next month — the first on Sept. 12 and the second on Sept. 26.

The property tax distribution was originally scheduled for Sept. 20. However, during a recent meeting with Bethalto School District No. 8 Superintendent Jill Griffin and Business Manager Barrett Diest, Slusser was informed that the district was in jeopardy of not making payroll in September due to the state funding crisis.

With the new school funding bill (SB1) now held up in the legislature, the schools have not received their General State Aid payments in August. The district expected to receive a General State Aid payment of $407,430.91 on Aug. 10 and then a second payment on Aug. 20.

Now, those payments are not expected to be made until the school funding bill is passed and it’s not clear as to when the payments will be caught up.

“The legislature can’t seem to get its act together, and unfortunately, we can’t control what they’re planning to do or when they’re planning to do it,” Slusser said. “In the meantime, schools are held hostage and some are in jeopardy of closing their doors. What we can control is when we distribute our local tax dollars that we’ve collected, so this was an easy decision for me.“

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