Indian Prairie School District 204 will get more money for teachers, technology and new buildings, after voters Tuesday embraced two referendum questions for the state’s fourth-largest district.
With 53 of 64 precincts in DuPage and Will Counties reporting, 57 percent of voters approved a 90-cent increase in the district’s education fund rate.
The additional money will be used to give teachers a raise and hire hundreds of teachers to staff classrooms during a period of expected growth over the next five years. This would cost the owner of a $300,000 home almost $1,000 more in school taxes, an increase that would be phased in over 4 years.
Supt. Gail McKenzie said she expected the margin to be much closer and credited a tireless campaign by volunteers to educate new residents about the need for the money.
“Our best asset are our teachers. … We need to retain our staff,” she said.
Voters also endorsed, by roughly a 3-to-2 ratio, an $88 million construction bond, which is not projected to cost homeowners any additional money. Still, it was controversial because of its freshman center construction proposal. The referendum question will not increase the tax rate because the projects will be phased in as the district pays off existing construction bonds.
This election was bitterly fought in recent weeks, largely because of some fierce opposition from a group called WE CARE 2. The affluent district–covering south Naperville, parts of Aurora and a sliver of Bolingbrook–had enjoyed a reputation for easily passing expensive bond proposals, but the 11th-hour anti-referendum campaign had supporters anxious.
With early results revealing a comfortable margin of victory, there was relieved optimism at the Moose Lodge in Naperville, where referendum question supporters celebrated their apparent victory.
Trisha Rosado, a volunteer on the referendum committee and a mother of two McCarty Elementary pupils, said she had tears in her eyes when the Naperville precinct where she was working closed with an unexpectedly high margin of approval for the two questions.
“I went home and gave my kids a hug and thanked them for putting up with all the meetings and nights I was gone,” said Rosado of Aurora.
Teacher pay was a big issue in the education fund question, for both sides.
Supporters said the district needed the extra taxes to keep its teachers salaries competitive with area districts, particularly with its neighbor, Naperville District 203. The committee that studied the referendum proposal recommended average salary increases of about 7 to 8 percent.
Approval of the measure allows the district during coming teacher negotiations to offer a generous salary package that has already been approved by the community. By 2004, the increase will bring in an additional $43 million, about one-third of which is earmarked for teacher salaries.
School officials had warned the district would be plunged deeper into debt if the proposal lost. The district is expected to end this year with a $5 million deficit, a shortfall that would have grown to $28 million by 2005, said Doug Gallois, assistant superintendent for business.
Detractors have said the new money puts the district at a disadvantage during negotiations because there is nothing stopping the teachers union from asking for much larger raises.
The district plans to use the bulk of the construction money, about $53 million, to build two middle schools and convert two existing middle schools into freshman centers for Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley High Schools.
According to district enrollment projections, the two high schools will top out in 2010 with about 8,800 students, but that number is expected to level off and decline. The district has been planning the freshman center concept since 1993, with the idea that the new middle school buildings could be sold as commercial property after enrollment drops off. WE CARE 2 argued the district should build a third high school instead, an option the district said could cost voters $80 million to $100 million.
The rest of the $88 million would pay for a new elementary school in the north end of the district and an addition at Graham Elementary in far southwest Naperville. About $9 million is earmarked for technology expenses, most of it to buy replacement computers.
Referendum question approval means the district qualifies for a $20 million state construction grant, a windfall that a committee of district parents and staff will decide how to spend in the coming month.
