District 200’s four-page color newsletter landed in mailboxes last week promoting its financial management, including its funding of Project 2, but they misrepresented and omitted information, spinning the facts.
The newsletter’s “Fast Fiscal Facts” attempted to whitewash the district’s financial record:
- D200 boasts that it collected $77 million less in property taxes than permitted by law for 10+ years but doesn’t explain why. Beginning in 2005, D200 used a loophole to overtax residents, resulting in a cash reserve of $130 million by 2013, when less than $20 million, 25% of annual operating expenses, was needed to earn D200 a AAA bond rating (1). After an outcry from taxpayers, D200 began spending down the reserve of unauthorized tax dollars which enabled it to collect less-than-max property taxes.
- The years of extreme over-taxation, compounded annually, ratcheted up the levy, and D200 never rightsized it. It’s the reason for D200’s inflated levy.
- The newsletter touts that there’s no additional tax levy for the “$102 million” Project 2, but that’s not a good thing. D200 ignored best practice in public finance and refused to put the funding on the ballot for voter approval, apparently fearing defeat at the polls, and used a loophole instead, issuing controversial debt certificates which are repaid from the operating budget, hiking the tax levy every year for repayment. Debt certificates are intended for a school’s short-term emergency use. It’s the reason why they’re not subject to voter approval.
- Debt certificates are more costly than bonds. The cumulative levy increases due to Project 2’s borrowing clogging the operating budget mean the total cost of the pool/PE addition will be incalculable, with permanent, compounding levies for a temporary expense, unlike bond issues which have their own funding source and end date.
- Bond referendums are best practice as evidenced by the 20 school districts who placed them on the November ballot for voter approval. Their referendums ranged from $4 million-$420 million for improvements, additions and new buildings, according to the Illinois Association of School Boards (2).
- D200 presents Project 2’s funding as not adding “to the local tax burden,” but that’s false. Its recent issuance of $46.5 million in debt certificates forces taxpayers to pay higher levies for the next 20 years to pay for Project 2. Our annual taxes would be lower without this borrowing.
- Assistant Superintendent for Business Services Tony Arbogast states that the district is “not raising taxes needlessly,” but fails to acknowledge that the district is continuing its practice of overtaxing residents. The board is expected to approve the proposed levy in December which will result in a $10.1 million surplus/overtaxation next year (3).
- D200 disingenuously lists Project 2’s cost as $102 million when its current cost is closer to $140 million (construction, borrowing and geothermal costs).
- To date, the Imagine Foundation says it has raised $10 million, but only $1 million has been donated to Project 2.
Monica Sheehan is a 24-year Oak Park resident and former news reporter. She has been following and independently investigating the D200 pool story since 2014.
Sources:
1) History of the District 200 Fund Balance: https://www.oprfhs.org/about/business-office/fund-balance-background
2) Illinois Association of School Boards: November 2024 Bond Referendums https://www.iasb.com/news-listing/2024/october-2024-news/referendums-on-november-2024-ballot/
3) Oct. 24 D200 Board Meeting: 2024 Proposed Tax Levy https://go.boarddocs.com/il/oprfhs/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=DA5G6S4252EA