District 46 Should Have Granted Tax Rebate
- on 01.22.07
- CCSD #46
- 1 Comment
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- Del.icio.us
The Daily Herald weighed in on the decision by the District 46 school board not giving the bond money back to the taxpayers. They sided with the taxpayers and said, “District 46 Should Have Granted Tax Rebate.”
[Emphasis Mine]
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The board of Grayslake Elementary District 46 should have stuck with its initial decision from October: to rebate property taxes to homeowners who paid more than they expected after approving a tax increase in 1999. Board member Keith Surroz, who last week reversed his previous support for the rebate, said the district, by hanging on to the money instead of returning it homeowners, can operate longer without returning to voters to ask for another tax increase. The problem, though, is that the district acquired the extra $6.9 million through means that almost certainly were not clear to residents who supported the tax increase. a school district accepting a premium collects more money than advertised in the original bond issue, but taxpayers also end up paying a greater overall cost for the loan than advertised or publicized. District 46 bond issue was among the most costly of all those examined. District officials agreed to pay 9 percent compound interest on the loan in exchange for collecting money that otherwise would not be available because of state-imposed debt limits. The result? District officials have several million more dollars with which to work but district taxpayers will pay back $2.41 for every dollar borrowed. Instead of asking themselves how the school system would get by without the revenue that they would be rebating, District 46 officials should have been asking themselves whether they honestly think that voters would have OK’d the bond issue in the first place if they had been informed of all the details that emerged later. The related question is how long will it be before voters trust district officials sufficiently to approve any future tax-increase request. It doesn’t take much imagination or a particularly jaded view to venture that it might be a while. |
It is time to elect a new school board; one that will be honest, ethical and responsive to the taxpayers instead of blindly doing what the school district wants. You can read more details about the bond issue here and about how to run for the school board here. Please consider joining other fiscally responsible citiziens who care about education and the taxpayers instead of the public government school bureaucracy.
[...] The News-Sun did an article on Saturday about the Grayslake school board voting against tax relief. As you can see, there is much interest in this school board decision. The Daily Herald said Sunday the bonds should have been abated. I know there were emails and phone calls to board members last October as well. The community wanted their money back. [...]