Watch script in District 26
Residents of School District 26, beware.
You’re about to get bombarded with propaganda as to why you should dig much deeper into your pocketbook to bail out a district that refuses to make the difficult decisions needed to balance its budget.
District 26 Superintendent Brian Coleman is recommending that the school board ask voters for a 70-cent tax rate increase for the education fund tempered by a 20-cent tax rate decrease for the bond fund.
The net tax increase would mean the owner of a $300,000 home who takes the homestead exemption would pay about $473 more annually.
We’ve seen this sad script before, often played out successfully in school districts throughout McHenry County.
If you don’t support a tax increase referendum that more than likely will be put on the Feb. 5 ballot, here’s some of what you can expect to be told will happen in the future:
• All extra-curricular programming will be cut;
• School days will be shorter;
• Classrooms will be overcrowded;
• The best teachers will flee to more lucrative jobs in other districts;
• Schools will close;
• Your child’s education will suffer;
• Your home values will deteriorate.
About the only thing you won’t hear is that the football program will be eliminated because, well, District 26 is an elementary district and it doesn’t offer football.
Of course, some of the above may be true.
In a district that’s been deficit spending for years, that projects a $1.88 million deficit this year, and that went to voters last year seeking a tax increase only to lose by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, some of these steps already should have taken place.
District administrators have proposed closing a school to save money. Enrollment is down more than 400 students since 2005, after all. But the school board seems too timid to actually take the action.
Before the school district asks for more money from its taxpayers, many of whom already are struggling to pay their own mortgages, we have some suggestions:
• Make the decision on which school to close and follow through;
• Ask all district employees to take a pay cut – including teachers who reaped the benefits of a booming economy and should share in the sacrifice;
• Evaluate every job, and eliminate those that can be done without.
These cost-control measures are taken every day in the private sector. If our elected public officials can’t do the same, they aren’t acting in our best interest and it’s time to replace them.
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