Unit 5’s Tax Referendum asking for $20 million a year failed at the polls on November 8th but that doesn’t mean the issue is settled. In fact another referendum could appear on the ballot as soon as in April. The Normal School District is seeking to communicate with people who voted no on the tax measure to see why they voted no and what might change their minds.
Cities 92.9 talked with Barry Hitchins, President of the Unit 5 School Board and he told us, “We just need to take our time to reach out to people to find out, and really we are looking for people who voted against it, to get a better understanding of why they voted against it and if there was more information or discussions we could have with them to improve the outcome that we would like to see as a district.”
We asked Hitchins if the timeline would allow for a referendum on the April ballot and he explained, “So the next election is April fourth. That’s the consolidated election. The deadline to put a public question on the ballot for the April fourth election, our board would have to take action I believe by January 17th. So we have got essentially two months to figure out how we want to proceed.”
Cutting All Extra Curriculars Wouldn’t Solve Unit 5 Budget Deficit
Unit 5’s budget is structured right now so that the district could continue using working cash to cover its deficits through the fiscal year (FY) 2024/25 school year. The district was looking to tap into additional funding beginning in FY 2025/26. So theoretically Normal could wait to pass a referendum in fall of 2024.
However, Hitchins pointed out the risk with doing that saying, “We are going to continue to see the deficit grow just because of inflation and expense pressures. So we are dealing with $11.7 or so million dollar deficit right now. By then it could grow to $18, $19 million, I don’t remember the exact number at this point. But if it doesn’t pass at that point then we have to start taking action to either continue to bridge the gap with working cash bonds or we have to start making significant cuts to close that deficit. And that’s going to be a significant amount in one year.”
We asked Hitchins what his thoughts were about making cuts in the interim with two possible outcomes; one being those that would like to see cuts would see the district trying to make them and two, those not liking the cuts would have an opportunity to rally together to pass a referendum to avoid them.
Hitchins reflected back to the $2 million worth of cuts the district made in the spring of 2021 and how poorly those were received by the community.
Superintendent Weikle Gives “Informational Speech” Again at Board Meeting
Unfortunately it appears that what we have here is a chasm between on one hand those working in the school system understanding they have a big budget problem but seemingly unwilling to make significant cuts to solve it and on the other hand citizens that feel over taxed and that don’t trust the school system enough to believe that what they might consider easy budget cuts can’t be made to solve the problem.
Throw on top of all of this there will be elections for school board on April fourth in an election year where school board races are expected to be hotly contested.
One thing is sure. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of drama.