Decatur will see some help from federal funding bill

spending bill to fund roughly two-thirds of federal government operations.

The bill contained a $100,000 grant to the Community Foundation of Decatur/Macon County, which applied for the funds on behalf of the St. Teresa Foundation to support science programs and related academic activities. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, put the money into the bill.Also in the bill were $2 million for land acquisition and utilities relocation for continued expansion of U.S. 51 to four lanes from Moweaqua to Assumption and money within a $3.5 million appropriation for downstate transit systems from which the Decatur Public Transit System hopes to obtain 12 new buses."Community leaders came to Sen. Durbin and said they needed a way to promote science in the high schools," said Joe Shoemaker, Durbin's press aide. "The Community Foundation volunteered to take the lead and to use St. Teresa as a test case. If that worked, it would seek money for other schools."Community Foundation Executive Director Lucy Murphy said the federal funding is just one project she has been working on. She said efforts also are under way to help school foundations in the Decatur, Mount Zion, Meridian and Maroa-Forsyth school districts."We want to do more of this resource development for the school foundations," she said.The St. Teresa Foundation sought the help of the Community Foundation with funding its science wing project because Murphy has had a lot of experience in such matters, said Kevin Breheny, a St. Teresa Foundation board member and co-chairman of the school's capital campaign.More than half of the proposed new wing will be science-related laboratories with the remaining space serving choral and band programs and creating a multipurpose room for school programs, Breheny said. There is no space currently dedicated to the music programs, which must use the school gymnasium, he said.None of the federal money can be used for bricks and mortar on the school addition, Breheny said. But it can be used to purchase laboratory equipment and teaching aids, he said."We'll have to submit a plan telling exactly where it's going to be spent before we get any of it," Breheny said. "We need every dime we can get."The St. Teresa campaign has raised $3.4 million in cash and pledges that will be paid over a five-year period, Breheny said. Ground has not been broken on the project because the $4 million must be in hand for the project to begin, he said.Ron Ingram can be reached at 421-7973.