For months, officials in Carpentersville-area schools and the Elgin library devised strategies to sell building projects to a skeptical public.
In both cases, officials turned to seemingly common-sense arguments: They had no choice but to ask for property-tax increases if their agencies were to keep up with fast-growing populations.
“We need classrooms for the kids,” District 300 Deputy Supt. Fred Goering said.
Yet when put to a vote Tuesday, Carpentersville-area voters came down 2-to-1 against the school district’s $78.9 million plan to build two new schools and additions designed to keep pace with 500 new students annually.
Meanwhile, in Elgin, library polling of district residents before the vote showed the project enjoyed strong public support. But in the privacy of a ballot booth, nearly three in five voters nixed a $28 million plan to build the new library.
Yet in what some had come to regard as the anti-tax territory of Barrington, a $9.9 million plan to build a Village Hall and combined police and fire station passed easily.
So what happened?
One school of thought in District 300, expressed by board Vice President Charles Chamberlain, is that residents failed to get the message that their schools are bursting at the seams and need relief. The answer, he said, is to mount a more effective campaign and try again in either the March primary or next November’s general election.
A more fundamental instinct to draw the line on taxes may be more difficult to overcome, however. Like any Illinois school district in a high-growth area, District 300 finds itself in the unenviable position of having no control over new subdivisions that developers want and village leaders approve, yet getting stuck with the consequences of ever-rising enrollments.
“People have homes and mortgages and taxes and kids in college,” board President Mary Henk said. “The public does not want to have any more in expenses.”
But she added, “We don’t have any other option. We have to ask the taxpayers, `What do you want us to do with these students?’ “
Parents and children now will feel the vote’s effect. Though no decisions have been made, 5th graders may be sent to middle school rather than wait until 6th grade, when that transfer now occurs.
There also is talk of larger class sizes, split shifts at high schools and boundary changes.
Even if voters were to approve new schools next March, construction couldn’t begin until 1999 because of the time needed to draw up specifications and put contracts to bid.
In Elgin, library officials similarly interpreted their loss not as anti-library but as anti-tax–and a consequence of the failure of Illinois lawmakers to ease the burden that public schools place on property taxes.
Across the Chicago area, libraries were punished at the polls. Out of seven proposals to build new libraries or raise library taxes, five failed.
Yet less than 5 percent of a typical property-tax bill goes to libraries, said Daniel Zack, director of the Borden Public Library in Elgin. About 60 percent goes to public schools.
“We’re the little guys, but we suffer because of the high property taxes for school systems,” he said.
More Top Picks Best Neck Cooling Fans
Now, library board members will sift through once-rejected ideas with a fresh eye. Options include building a library branch instead of a new central library, adding to the current building or building a smaller library.
All have drawbacks and could end up costing more in the long run. But officials may have no choice but to change course.
That’s what Barrington leaders did after voters torpedoed a 1995 proposal for a new fire station and a new Village Hall. At the time, voters complained that the proposal was too costly, failed to include a much-needed police station and would have dwarfed Barrington’s quaint downtown buildings.
The new project consolidated the police and fire stations, reduced two fire facilities to one, scaled down the new Village Hall and preserved the historic facade of the old Village Hall. The bottom line was a smaller bite on property taxes.
“Overall,” said acting village manager Denise Pieroni said, “I think it’s a much better program.”