Story by Kevin Woodard
Scan here and weigh in.
Unit 5 is facing a $13 million operating budget deficit next year. Many believe the district will be seeking approval to raise property taxes. A referendum could appear on the ballot as soon as November. If you want to address the issue then the time to act is now.
Unit 5 held its first of three public meetings seeking input on how to resolve its budget crisis at Normal High School on Saturday.
A second meeting is scheduled tonight at Kingsley Junior High. The third meeting will be a virtual meeting on Tuesday night.
At Saturday’s meeting Superintendent Dr. Kristen Weikle presented an overview of where the District is with its education funds, how they got there and what’s been done to try to address the issue. Weikle also emphasized that the District is inviting public comments and suggestions.
Weikle gave five reasons why the budget issue exists. They included the 2008 Referendum for new school construction, the real estate crash of 2009, decreases in state funding, unfunded mandates and growing behavioral and social needs of students.
Unfortunately the District did not quantify in its presentation the impact in dollars these items have on the cost of their annual operating budget.
Looking at those reasons one can see that three of them are out of the Districts hands; real estate values, decreases in state funding and unfunded mandates.
Real estate values have been low in past years but fortunately real estate in Bloomington Normal has since recovered. The state began cutting its funding levels several years ago and there is no reason to believe the state will be able to provide more revenue anytime soon. Unfortunately, in government, unfunded mandates are a fact of life.
Two of these reasons are things the District has some control over.
First is the bonds that resulted from the 2008 referendum. The good news is the bonds will be paid off in about five years. While this funding does not directly impact the operations budget the levy for the property tax rate of about 1 dollar would disappear at that time. Of course if the District decides it needs to do more construction at that time, then this savings would not materialize.
Secondly is the spending on behavioral and social needs of students. District 5 representatives did not have any further information available regarding how much of a dollar impact this item is having on the budget when questioned after the meeting by this writer.
Cities 92.9 asked Marlin Hickman, Chief Financial Officer for the District, if Tax Increment Financing (TIF) arrangements for the earliest phases of Uptown Normal development that will be ending in two years will benefit Unit 5. He responded, “My current estimate is that it will bring in a million and a half for the school district.”
Similarly to the 2008 referendum, should it be decided to use TIF funding for Uptown Development such as the Trail East and Trail West project then there might be no net gain for the school board from this revenue stream.
Tonight’s meeting at Kingsley Jr. High and Tuesday’s virtual meeting online are scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m.
