District 200 has imposed on the community historic and unprecedented tax increases in recent years. In late-December, it announced an additional property tax increase next year of over 3 percent. “This is simply funding that is necessary for us to do what we do,” according to Dist. 200 Board President Berry Greenwald (Wednesday Journal, Jan. 3). That is exactly the problem. It is time for a change in Dist. 200.
The community must demand that Dist. 200 do things differently. This year, the high school is collecting $7.5 million in surplus revenues from our property taxes, which will run the Dist. 200 surplus fund to nearly $40 million. This is before the tax increase announced for next year. There is clearly enough money in the community to fund the high school and the elementary schools. But the high school has bitten off too much of the revenue pie, and left Dist. 97 scrounging for the crumbs.
Dist. 200 has been running these surpluses, and announced this most recent tax increase, at a time when it is well aware that Dist. 97, from where roughly 3/4 of the high school’s students come, is facing crippling deficits. Unlike Dist. 200, Dist. 97 has not had a real revenue increase in nearly two decades. Dist. 97 has met its responsibility to the community, making nearly $5 million in cuts in recent years. However, this has not been enough, and the rising costs of education have left Dist. 97 with deficits despite these spending cuts. The effort to bring supplemental TIF funding to Dist. 97 is the result of this, and will only bring short-term coverage of these deficits. Without future revenue relief, the elementary schools will face painful cuts in teachers and programs, and increases in class sizes.
Meanwhile, Dist. 200 continues to get fatter. It has not demonstrated the kind of community responsibility that Dist. 97 has. This has to change. Part of the Dist. 200 Board of Education’s plan has been to push out the need for a future tax referendum to 2018, by amassing large surpluses to hedge against the future. Perhaps this strategy would make sense were there no interests other than its own. However, we are supposed to be a community. Where is the incentive for Dist. 200 to operate efficiently, to cut wasteful spending and non-essential costs as Dist. 97 has done, when it is running multi-million-dollar surpluses and continues to increase revenues by raising our taxes?
Dist. 200 board member John Rigas says the high school has not increased the tax bills of property owners, that it is not responsible for “the shift in the pie” of tax revenues. This is outright deception. The Dist. 200 levy in Oak Park has doubled in relation to Dist. 97 in the last seven years. That is not just a shift in the pie. For the first time in history, Dist. 200 is eating the largest share of that pie. This increase was not anticipated, was not necessary, and is not responsible.
The Dist. 200 board is not only hurting the community, it will ultimately hurt itself. Their actions indicate that they do not understand the value and importance to their own future of strong, quality elementary schools. Without real budgetary relief, Dist. 97 is going to have to make further cuts that will have a direct and negative impact on the education of our children. The high school will have students entering its doors who are annually less prepared, who exhibit ever-wider achievement gaps, and who have increasingly severe discipline problems. Is this what they want for their future?
It is not the future I want for my children. The citizens of Oak Park and River Forest must bring change to Dist. 200, and the surest way to do so is through the ballot. We need candidates to step forward for the Dist. 200 school board who care about the community, not just inflating their own budgets. In April, we must elect new, fiscally-responsible members to the Dist. 200 school board, who will fight to bring efficiency to the budget and stop and even reverse the large tax increases. We need to elect a Dist. 200 school board that will care about the broader community, and in particular that will pay attention to, and will work with, the elementary schools, which are so critical to the high school’s success.