With record inflation, soaring prices for basic goods and services such as food, gas, housing and utilities, how will an additional $300 to $1000+ per year in property taxes impact your household? Remember, D66 asked for, and received, $13M to repair the school buildings as recently as 2017. The district already receives 38+% of your total property tax payments – the most of any of the other taxing bodies that appear on your property tax bill.

See the sample of an actual property tax bill, below:

IF THIS REFERENDUM PASSES

• Will you have less to contribute to your retirement savings because you are paying for someone else’s?
• Will you receive an automatic 6% increase in your salary, for the 4 years preceding your retirement, so your monthly pension will be inflated, forever, based on this salary spike?
• IF you have a pension, does it get an automatic 3% increase every year?
• Will you be able to afford your health care benefits?
• Can you count on your employer giving you an automatic annual raise?
• Will you be able to afford your rent because property owners pass these costs on to you?
• Will you have less to contribute to your child’s college plan?
• Will you stop being able to prepay your mortgage, to save on your interest costs?
• Will you have to put your home improvement projects on hold?
• Will you have to increase your insurance deductibles?
• Will you deplete your “emergency fund” for those unexpected events like car repairs?
• What are other cuts you will have to make?

The magnitude and timing of this request could not be worse. Taxpayers are tightening their belts to make ends meet while the district’s expenses are growing at an alarming rate. The burden of the overhead costs, if not contained, will quickly outpace even this proposed revenue stream. Nearly 90% of the district’s revenues come from residential taxpayers. This tax burden is proportionately higher than other school districts in Illinois –

CCSD 66 keeps comparing itself to school districts throughout DuPage County but how does it compare to our neighboring K-8 school districts?

This is on the district’s website –

But this is how CCSD 66’s Per Pupil Expenditures (PPEs) compared to our neighbors –

This is how much revenue the district has received over the past 10 years (Source: ISBE Report Card – https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?source=environment&source2=revenueamounts&Districtid=19022066002) –

Compare the following expenditure values to the predictable revenue stream, above –

When you know how much money you have to spend, and you create a forward-looking budget every year, how do you spend more than you receive, year after year? The district has told the community that they spent the millions in und balance, the curriculum is old and has not been updated for many years, the facilities are in dire need of repair because they’ve “kicked the can” for too many years and they spend “less per pupil” than others. To sum it up – they spent their savings AND are NOT spending the millions in annual tax revenues on curriculum, facilities or students.

So where have they spent the tens of millions in property tax revenues they receive, every year, for the ~1100 students in our district?

If this Referendum passes, the Administration and BOE will have the power to spend funds as they choose – essentially, an open check book. Unlike a Building Bond for facilities, a permanent increase in the Limiting Rate will provide unrestricted access to where and how the money is spent, including salaries and benefits under new contractual arrangements (the existing Teachers Contract expired on August 31st but no new contract is in place and the school year is already in progress – what are they waiting for?).

The structure of this referendum, and the promises being made by the Superintendent and BOE, do not protect the students or community from future financial mismanagement. Board Policies are not “guarantees” and can be revised by future BOEs as they deem appropriate. For example, the Fund Balances BOE Policy in 2016 had very specific guidelines on maintaining a healthy level of Fund Reserves yet, here we are, issuing Tax Anticipation Warrants (TAWs) to make ends meet.

This chart, from the district’s own auditor, says it all –

Let’s go back to the drawing board, elect new leadership on the BOE, and get it right for the future of the students and the entire CCSD 66 Community!

Articles on Record Inflation:

Wall Street Journal 6/11/22 – https://www.wsj.com/articles/food-prices-to-keep-going-up-as-costs-surge-11654939800?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1

The Center Square 9/20/22 – https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/analyst-warns-illinois-law-could-bring-higher-property-tax-rates-thanks-to-record-inflation/article_48056d7e-3926-11ed-899f-b77c8986b700.html