After losing its referendum to increase property taxes in March 2002, Springfield
School District 186 said it had no choice but to lop $10 million from its budget
and eliminate 178 jobs and dozens of programs. Then earlier this year the district
hired consultants to lead a series of public meetings to repair the damage.
The first session took place on September 9, when about 270 Springfield residents
prioritized a list of issues the consultants gave them. The subject topping
most lists came as no surprise.
“School finance” will be the sole topic of discussion during the next public meeting at Springfield High School on Tuesday, September 30, from 5:30 to 7:30. The meeting will begin with a 30-minute presentation, after which those in attendance will split into small groups to work on worksheets prepared by the consulting firm, Unicom-Arc of St. Louis, which specializes in helping school districts with public relations and community involvement. Its $43,000 fee is being paid with a grant.
According to District 186 spokesperson Carol Votsmier, the agenda for the meeting hasn’t been created yet. However, it’s likely many participants will want to see whether some of the district’s cutbacks can be reversed. But, according to school board president Rick Heironimus, there’s little chance of that happening: “As the budget stands now, there’s not a lot of flexibility at all. To increase one program would call for a decrease in another program. Most of the budget, about 80 percent, goes to personnel.”
Discussion might also turn to how the district is funded. Property taxes came up again last week at the most recent school board meeting. The board was being pressured to publicly denounce a proposed Tax Increment Financing district on 62 acres of land just northwest of Sangamon Avenue and Dirksen Parkway. It would be Springfield’s seventh TIF. Last year District 186 figured it had lost more than $12 million between 1982 and 2002 thanks to TIFs. Others have taken up their own calculators since that finding, including Springfield parent Gary Hoyland, who says the loss continues to grow by millions of dollars a year. Property tax revenues from TIFs generally don’t make their way back to schools until the TIF district is 23 years old, he says. They might have to wait even longer if a TIF district is renewed.
The school board has never stood in the city’s way when it comes to TIFs. Parents, such as Hoyland, who last week challenged the board to stand up for itself, consider past neutral stances a sign of weakness, a caving in to commercial interests that always seem to get the better end of the stick. While the school board can vote to oppose or endorse the TIF, it has no power to stop it from happening. But if a protest vote rallied the public, City Council members might choose to follow suit.
Norm Sims, the city’s director of economic development., says the new TIF
is needed: nearly 90 percent of the properties in the proposed area are deteriorating
and almost half of them don’t meet minimal building codes. Sims also says a
new revenue sharing feature means the school district will receive $4 million
over the TIF’s 23-year life. “We’re not pitting the city against the schools,”
he says. “It’s unfortunate to look at it like that because my personal and professional
goals say otherwise. We get two to three requests a year for new TIFs. Many
of them we don’t adopt simply because the area didn’t need one.”
To learn more about District 186’s meetings, visit www.springfield.k12.il.us/voices/index.html
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2003.
