I’ve been reading with interest the various letters from the River Forest community about the District 90 teacher union negotiations and the need to pay teachers properly. I support the fact that teachers ought to be paid appropriately, as I think we all do. However, I will leave those negotiations to the union and the school board.
Overall, the consensus seems to be that the schools have improved in the past few years, so kudos to the teachers and staff who made this happen, despite COVID and the kindergarten and phonics fiascos. Now all the River Forest schools have been deemed exemplary under the state of Illinois proficiency standards (because of the politics involved in setting such standards, many people feel the standards are weak). However, the fact remains that approximately 1/4 of our students do not meet reading, and 1/3 students do not meet math state set proficiency standards. In language arts, the result for students from low-income families is significantly worse, as only about 25% meet state standards. This information is on the D90 website. We can and should do better for our community and our children, and that will take resources.
As I understand it, the River Forest Schools have been operating at an annual operating deficit of about $500,000 per year for a few years now. In addition, a new teachers contract is obviously going to cost more money, so the question is: Where is the money to come from? Realistically, there are three potential sources. Borrowing/spending reserves, tax increases, or tax revenues from increased commercial development.
Personally, I am opposed to borrowing more, or using too many of our reserves, to fund yearly operating deficits. In this state, we have all seen, unfortunately, the results this leads to long-term. On the second option, tax increases, if the community wants to fund the schools through tax increases, personally, we are absolutely fine with that and would be happy to pay our share.
While it can be a controversial topic, it seems to me that the village board, and the school board need to have a discussion with the village about what we do about commercial development in this town, including multifamily developments.
The practicality is that more commercial development leads to increased local tax revenues. For example, I would think that our largest two individual sources of tax revenues are the Jewel, and the stores at Harlem and Lake, especially Whole Foods.
When I compare River Forest’s level of building and activity in commercial development in recent years to other towns that surround us, while there’s been a little commercial development in River Forest, we have had significantly less, and that’s not just a function of our smaller size.
What this means, economically, is that the village is foregoing the opportunity for significant incremental tax revenues for all areas, including our schools. For example, if we could get the vacant properties developed at Park & Lake, Lathrop & Lake, and on Madison between Ashland & Lathrop, my guess is that development of those properties alone could generate tax revenues significant enough to wipe out most, if not all, the current $500,000 per year deficit for the schools.
In addition, if you look around town, there are lots of opportunities for redevelopment.
Jim Lynch is a resident of River Forest.