For many years the State Legislature, through its Capital Development Board (CDB), has helped school districts pay for additional classroom space. When planning our last bond issue the Community Building Committee explored the idea of how much the CDB might reimburse us for new construction of classrooms. A preliminary figure of $30 million was estimated. The cost for the projects needed in the next five years was just over $226 million. The Bond was for $185 million (money funded from the taxpayer), $11 million from the impact fees (money collected from developers) and an estimated $30 million from the Capital Development Board.
The legislature allocates the funds to the CDB and has been discussing enabling legislation for these funds for the past few years. However, no money has been allocated to the CDB for construction projects. Because of the delay by the Legislature of funding the CDB the district is not getting reimbursed for the additional classroom space it is currently adding. Therefore we have a cash flow problem that has required the district to delay the expansion and improvement of our middle schools. We were originally estimating revenues in 2007. However, it has become increasingly clear that the District will not receive the money on time, if at all.
This money is very important to addressing the overcrowding at our middle schools. Dundee Middle School has a capacity of 900. It currently serves 980 students and is expected to grow to 1345 students within five years. Westfield Middle School has a capacity of 1500 students and has had 1750 to 1800 students for more than six years. Both of these schools have four mobile classrooms this year. Dundee Middle School is trying to simultaneously teach five separate gym classes in one gymnasium!
Hampshire Middle/High School needs to be converted to serve only middle school students as its population grows from the 503 students now to 678-1486 students expected within the next five years.
This problem is caused by the State Legislature not allocating funds to the CDB.
The Legislature has failed to deliver.
The State Legislature actions are even more reprehensible when you consider that there are many other school districts in situations similar to ours. Many, many promises to public education in Illinois and to our kids have been broken.
Please contact your State Representatives and Senators. Click here for contact information. Tell them to fund the CDB to help our school district build the classrooms the students desperately need.
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