Wilmette School District 39 board members who met Sept. 28 approved authorizing a Chicago architectural firm to create bid packets for library upgrade projects at two of their schools. But they decided to link that approval to the status of property tax freeze legislation now in an Illinois House committee.
Chicago-based STR Partners will be paid $60,000 to put together a bid packet for plans to update the Wilmette Junior High School library and $30,000 to create a similar packet for work at Harper Elementary School.
But STR Partners won’t get the official authorization to start creating the packages until Oct. 1, and it will depend on whether state Senate Bill 318, which would freeze property taxes in Cook County for two years starting in 2017, passes the state House by that time.
Facilities committee chair Kimberly Alcantara said budget uncertainty in Springfield requires the district to “proceed cautiously” with building projects. The actual library upgrade projects wouldn’t go out to bid until next February in any case, she said, when more is known about how state finances could affect school district budgets.
She initially made the motion without the legislation contingency, but added it after board member Tracy Kearney asked about the reasons for going forward with authorization now.
Alcantara said the district would benefit by having the packets prepared in time for a February bid call because seeking bids that early in 2016 would allow the district to elicit more, and higher quality, bids.
Even if the board decides against going forward with the projects, which are currently tentatively scheduled to start next summer, having the bid specifications on hand would be valuable in the future, she said.
“We’d probably spend this money sometime, no matter what,” board member Cindy Levine agreed.
Alcantara, Levine and board members John Flanagin, Frank Panzica, Alice Schaff, and Mark Steen voted in favor of the authorization. Only Kearney voted against the motion.
Kearney said Sept. 29 that she thought the board should wait for a year to measure the success of Central School’s recently opened upgraded library, now known as the Learning Commons, before going ahead with plans for other library upgrades. She said she thought district plans to upgrade the rest of its libraries over a six-year period allowed for that delay.
Kearney also said that the district still doesn’t know about state legislation potentially affecting school coffers. That includes not only the proposed property tax freeze legislation, but efforts to shift responsibility for teachers’ pensions from the state to local school districts and to alter school funding formulas in ways that would take money from wealthier districts like District 39.
“Those are still out there on the horizon, and any mix of those three things could adversely affect the budget,” Kearney said. “Still, the vote was to go forward, and I support the board’s decision.”
On Sept. 29, Alcantara emphasized that authorizing the creation of the bid packages doesn’t mandate further action from the board if any legislation were to affect the district.
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“If we were to hear that a property freeze had been passed in Springfield by the end of Sept. 30, quite frankly, we’d probably decide to take up the discussion again in October,” she said, adding that she did not think passage was likely before Oct. 1.
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy