The Unit 5 School Board met on Wednesday night and indications are it favors pursuing a $14.5 million tax request. The board appears to be planning to put the referendum on the November 8th ballot. This level of increase would increase property taxes in McLean County $375 a year on an owner of a $180 thousand home.
The Unit 5 School Board appears to be ready to take these actions despite the fact they have yet to show why they need the increase. Cities 92.9 has challenged Unit 5 on this issue in three separate previous articles.
On April the 25th we wrote the district gave “five reasons why the budget issue exists”. … but “Unfortunately the District did not quantify in its presentation the impact in dollars these items have on the cost of their annual operating budget.”
On May the 20th we wrote, ” What the public needs to see is a comparison of the 2022/23 budget to the forecast budget for 2023/24 that shows the so called $11 million deficit.”
And on June 20th we wrote, “Unit 5 has yet to put forth a proposed budget for 2022/23 showing what their expected revenue is and where it would fall short of funding existing needs.”
After becoming frustrated with Unit 5’s less than forthcoming political tactics Cities 92.9 sent a FOIA request to the school district on July the 6th asking for, “any and all records in the possession of Unit 5 regarding a structural budget deficit forecast in the range of $11 to $13 million for fiscal year 2022 to 2023 including but not limited to letters, emails, texts and spreadsheets.”
On July the 12th we received a response from Unit 5 that ended with the statement, “The district will respond to your request by the end of the day on Wednesday, July 20, 2022.”
Cities 92.9 looks forward to an opportunity to review these records so we can provide you with more detailed information regarding why Unit 5 thinks it needs to raise your taxes.
