D200 says it can build pool facility without referendum

Oak Park and River Forest High School can construct its new pool facility without having to get voter approval via a ballot referendum.

OPRF plans to construct a new pool facility using existing school district funds —which could include a combination of reserves and selling bonds. But school administration sought legal advice on the matter after a citizen raised the issue of needing a capital referendum during a school board meeting last fall. 

But according to Tod Altenburg, OPRF’s chief financial officer, school districts are not required to seek voter approval to construct “additions to the existing school structure,” if those add-ons are fully paid for using current district funds. The high school school’s legal opinion is based on language in the Illinois School Code, Altenburg notes. The school code, he added, also has no language requiring a referendum in order to “repair or improve school buildings.”

OPRF is considering two sites for pool facility — an area just north of the football stadium (if chosen, the baseball field right next to the stadium would be shifted north). The other site is the current Lake Street parking garage (part of the garage would be torn down to accommodate a pool facility).    

According to Altenburg, both proposed sites are considered “attached” to the current school building per the Illinois School Code.

Supt. Steven Isoye has said a decision about a final site is scheduled to come forward this spring. The high school has dropped two other possible sites for consideration — inside a remodeled field house and on the site of the tennis courts just north of the baseball fields.