Dist. 87 reduces tax hopes

By Catherine Edman Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Tuesday, January 11, 2005


Voters in Glenbard High School District 87 will see in April a request to boost their property tax rate by 33 cents per $100 of assessed valuation over two years.

The board on Monday night agreed to try for the second time to pass a tax increase that would enhance some of the district's educational programs, bring back cut extracurricular programs and eliminate an accumulated $30 million deficit. The proposal would chip away at that deficit at the rate of $3.1 million per year.

Although the ballot question will ask for 18 cents for the education fund, it also plans to add 10 cents to the operations and maintenance fund and 5 cents to the working cash fund. It would be phased in over two years; the overall tax rate for the district would increase 18 cents the first year then an additional 15 cents the second year.

That's a reduction from what the district asked for and failed to receive last November. Officials wanted a phased in 45-cent increase over two years in the same three funds.

When the referendum request was rejected, voters repeatedly said they wanted the district to scale back what it was asking.

The plan presented to board members on Monday did that.

Initially, the district planned to finance over 10 years an $85 million facility plan. That's now been scaled back to $75 million.

The first request also restored all of the extracurricular programs that were eliminated in rounds of budget cuts and added new programs. This proposal simply restores those programs.

The district also scaled back its educational requests by increasing class sizes for freshmen and reducing some of its planned graduation requirement increases along with many other trimmed programs.

Board Vice President Rose Malcolm thinks this new plan fairly represents what voters requested.

"We did hear what the community said, that their pocketbooks are only so large," she said, adding that they went back and prioritized what they included in the referendum.