By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – A state commission that’s working on ways to overhaul the state’s school funding formula has its eye on property taxes, specifically lifting the burden on those taxes to pay for education.

State Sen. Jason Barickman, R-Bloomington, serves on the Illinois education funding commission which pored over the numbers at a meeting on Wednesday.

PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Barickman on WJBC.

“All of yesterday was talking about property taxes, tax caps… TIF (tax increment financing) districts and all the mechanisms that go into property taxes that manipulate the amount of money that’s available for schools,” Barickman said.

Barickman told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin there appears to be bipartisan support for cutting the link between property taxes and school funding.

“We have made a lot of progress on this issue,” Barickman said. “I think there’s an opportunity for us to put something together here.”

Critics have slammed the current formula for its reliance on property taxes which they say has led to wide disparities in what schools get.

Illinoisans pay the highest property taxes in the country and some school districts get much more money in taxes than other schools.

Barickman is pushing a so-called evidence-based model which has studied best practices that have worked in schools, but he said he’s not counting on anything yet.

“We have wonderful ways, unfortunately, to make common sense things fall apart at the last minute,” Barickman said.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].