In the 22 years Chris Young ran the business end of Elementary School District 30, the budget doubled, from about $12 million to about $24 million, according to records.
The bigger budgets reflected inflation, and paid for a one-to-one iPad-to-student ratio, more services for an increasing number of foreign-born students, more attention to special education, and the updating of buildings for maintenance and accessibility, Young said.
But the Northbrook/Glenview district can afford it, said Young, 59, who retired as assistant superintendent for finance and operations on June 29. That’s largely because tax-generating development flourished over the last generation while the student population stopped growing, he said.
“Back in ’94, when the tax caps came in, we started running deficits (and) started to tighten the belt, and really look closely at things,” he said. Tax caps have limited the annual property tax growth of Cook County school districts to 3 percent or less since the year he started, Young said.
But new development doesn’t count against the cap, and District 30 territory that had been fallow for decades is now built up, and the three-school system educates only 1,095 students, 86 fewer than in 1995, according to the district.
Young said enrollment over the next five years is projected to remain steady.
And at the end of 2022, the tax increment financing (TIF) district Glenview set up 23 years before for the infrastructure to develop former Naval Air Station Glenview expires. Young estimates that will release about $2 million in extra annual revenue to the school system, with no big capital projects on the horizon to fund.
The TIF in 1999 basically froze property taxes for all taxing bodies in the area of the big air base, Glenview Assistant Village Manager Don Owen said. School districts 34 and 225 will start getting checks in 2022, too, but he said he wouldn’t release estimates until the end of this year. Those two school districts have been reimbursed for the cost of each student from the former air base in an unusual TIF setup to keep the long period of waiting for the TIF to end from hurting districts that had to educate the new students.
District 30 has never had to worry about that. Its share of The Glen is completely developed, but no children live there.
In Northbrook, District 30’s portion of the Society of the Divine Word’s hundreds of acres have developed with valuable non-residential projects, such as Crate & Barrel headquarters, the Five Seasons Sports Club and the Willow Festival shopping center. Residences there, like Meadow Ridge, have brought few kids to drive up costs, Young said.
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And as older homes have given way to newer ones, children haven’t been a big factor, he added.
“They’re taking down two- and three-bedroom houses, and building bigger houses,” Young said. “But just because your house has six bedrooms doesn’t mean you fill them all with kids.”
Northbrook’s Shermer Place townhouses, built on industrial land a decade ago, have few kids, too, Young said.
Even when money was still tight, early on, the district was committed to making conditions better for students, Young said.
“When I came here none of our classrooms were air conditioned, and one of the things (then-superintendent) Harry Rossi wanted to do was get all of the classrooms air-conditioned by 2000, and we did it,” he said.
He said the district continued to scrimp, however, building a district office with prefabricated elements in 2001, spending about a third less than if constructed traditionally.
The district occasionally still runs deficits – about $1.4 million is planned next year, Young said – but only to pay down fund balances, he said.
Young’s own salary has risen from about $70,000 to $270,000 during his tenure, he said.
“I think relative to seniority and where he is according to position, and that this is a retirement contract, he’s relatively right down the middle,” School Board President Chuck Gitles said June 29.
Young said his successor, Dale Falk, starts at $185,000 annually.
Twitter: @IrvLeavitt