The future of the tenuous agreement between Buffalo Grove Village Hall and Community Consolidated Elementary District 21 to provide crossing guards at three elementary schools remains unclear, and a deadline is looming.
The current agreement remains in place — Takington, Longfellow and Joyce Kilmer elementary schools will have the crossing guards at their regular locations through Nov. 13 —but quibbling between the two governments about who will pay them means that students at those three buildings could be on their own after that.
During the Buffalo Grove Village Board’s Oct. 19 meeting, trustee Jeff Berman said he did not want to put children in danger, but that he was prepared to take the guards away.
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“The days of providing services for free, and under false pretenses from the group receiving these services, must end,” Berman said.
During its Oct. 15 meeting, the District 21 School Board voted against paying a bill from Village Hall for past and present services, and tabled a vote on an agreement for how the crossing guards would be paid in the future. On Oct. 20, District 21 superintendent Kate Hyland said her district’s financial situation was more complicated than the simple picture her counterparts in Buffalo Grove were painting.
“What we’re trying to do is make sure we’re being fiscally responsible,” Hyland said.
For decades, the village has hired, trained and paid crossing guards to work busy intersections for about an hour, twice a day, in front of its eight elementary buildings, including those belonging to Kildeer-Countryside Elementary District 96 and Aptakisic-Tripp Elementary District 102.
In January 2013, though, village leaders sent notification to all three of its districts that it wanted help. Without approaching any of the schools to negotiate agreements, Village Hall started billing them for 50 percent of its crossing guard costs.
District 96 and District 102 went along with the new expenses. District 21, though, started receiving bills for a service that had long been free, and ignored them. Today, Village Hall says District 21 owes more than $24,000, for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years.
On Aug. 3, a letter from village manager Dane Bragg informed the educators that their schools in Buffalo Grove would not have crossing guards for 2015-16 if they did not pay for both the past and present school years. On Aug. 21, the two sides came to a verbal agreement: the police department would continue to staff its usual Longfellow, Kilmer and Tarkington intersections, and District 21 would pay half the bill for a short period of time. That agreement was recently extended to Nov. 13.
This agreement hinges on District 21 paying half of that bill, and is independent from the 2013-14 and 2014-15 bills. Village Hall officials placed the 2015-16 bill so far at around $5,500, and tabled discussion on the matter at an Oct. 19 meeting.
After the meeting, deputy village manager Jenny Maltas specified that the crossing guards would remain at their posts until Nov. 13. She said that District 21 will need to pay for the entire fall semester to keep the service until winter break begins.
In correspondence and during meetings, Village Hall officials have cited state school code, which gives districts the ability “to employ persons for the purpose of directing traffic upon school grounds and on or along streets and highways or portions thereof within a radius of one mile from such school grounds, or to share the cost of employing such persons with or accept the employment of such persons by any unit of local government.”
But on Oct. 20, Hyland referred to the state’s municipal code: “Each municipality may employ and fix the compensation of persons to serve as school crossing guards, on a part-time basis, by directing traffic and protecting children crossing the streets in going to and from school.”
During the Village Board meeting, the trustees referred to District 21’s operating budget, and the $3.1 million it plans to stockpile this year.
“That would be a position we here at the village of Buffalo Grove would like to be in,” trustee Joanne Johnson said.
The next day, Hyland said her district’s chunk of unspent money is only the first of what should be five similar years of $3 million surpluses — all a part of their plan to rebuild their reserve fund. District 21 operates on around $100 million annually, and the state recommends that schools keep 25 percent of a year’s budget in a reserve fund. Currently, District 21’s reserve fund is only $10 million, and Hyland said her office wanted to save $3 million in each of the next five years to get back in line.
“They’re trying to paint the picture that we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do,” Hyland said.”
And District 21 has more at stake than just its three Buffalo Grove schools: Wheeling Village Hall provides them with crossing guards for the schools in that municipality, free of charge.
Wheeling officials were not reached early this week for comment.
Twitter: @RonnieAtPioneer
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