Oak Park Elementary School District 97 officials are currently overhauling how much outside individuals, organizations and businesses are charged to rent out district buildings. In the past, the responsibility for managing building usage fell to just one person with little oversight, resulting in a likely a loss of revenue and an unequal application of the requirements for using district buildings across different groups, some district officials said.

Officials said it could take several months to evaluate just how much it costs to allow outside entities to utilize facilities and for the board to approve a new fee structure. In the meantime, the D97 school board decided to simply charge groups 10 percent over what they were paying last year. 

Alicia Evans, D97’s assistant superintendent of finance and operations, said in a Sept. 12 memo that the district interviewed the person responsible for managing building usage for D97 and found “many issues with the building usage process at the time.” 

Evans said that some organizations hadn’t submitted certificates of insurance, which wasn’t required to use district buildings. This meant that the district “was not insulated against risk or liability,” Evans said. 

There was also “no centralized place where anyone could go to understand what organizations were using any building,” and “some buildings were in use seven days a week because a group/organization could be in a building every day that week.” 

Evans also said that after walking through the buildings, “I discovered that many of the buildings were not properly cleaned because there were no blackout dates during the school year or summer months.” In addition, building rental “was handled differently based on the school or group.” 

Earlier this year, Evans said, the district implemented some minor changes to its building usage process, which included administering the process from the district office so that it’s now more centralized. The fee structure, however, wasn’t changed. 

Currently, the entities that use D97 buildings are grouped into six categories, A through F. 

Group A includes D97 schools, which aren’t charged anything for building usage and aren’t required to submit an insurance certificate. 

Group B includes organizations such as the PTO, BRAVO/CAST, and the Oak Park Education Foundation, which are only charged the cost of having custodians onsite during hours when those groups are using district buildings. These groups are required to submit an insurance certificate. 

Group C includes scouting groups and outside governmental bodies, such as the village of Oak Park and the Oak Park Public Library. They’re charged custodial fees for overtime hours, for the use of district equipment and other staff charges. They’re also required to have insurance. 

Groups D through F include nonprofits based in Oak Park, nonprofits based outside of Oak Park and private, for-profit organizations and private organizations that aren’t based in Oak Park, respectively. All of these groups are required to have insurance and are charged for building usage, custodial fees during regular and overtime hours, equipment usage and other staff charges. Groups D, E and F are charged 100 percent, 150 percent and 200 percent, respectively, of building usage fees. 

The old rates for using the middle school auditoriums were $30 an hour, or $150 for up to four hours per date and $30 for each additional hour. 

During a regular board meeting earlier this month, Evans said the current fee structure doesn’t cover other costs, such as utility fees, garbage pickup, water and supplies. 

“These costs wouldn’t be in existence if those groups weren’t using the space,” Evans said. “Right now, the district is picking that up.”

Evans had proposed raising building usage rates by 10 percent over last year — increasing, for instance, the cost of utilizing the middle school auditoriums from $30 an hour to $33. But that rate increase, compounded over hours and days, would have made the buildings too expensive to rent, representatives from some outside groups said. 

The D97 school board decided to increase by 10 percent the total of what groups paid last year to use the buildings while district officials factor the costs that Evans mentioned into a new fee structure. That process could take three to four months, said D97 board president Holly Spurlock.

“We are in a constant effort to do things in a way that’s financially responsible,” Spurlock said at a Sept. 12 regular board meeting. “At the same time, we know that schools are a place where the community meets and so we want to be cognizant of limited budgets.” 

CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com  

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