Perhaps it’s time to step back from the details of the District 112 re-configuration and see it for the vanity project that it is. The board and its administration have spent, over a two-year period, an obscene amount of money to “sell” the district’s taxpayers on the need for nothing more than a massive construction project.
In February 2014 the case was made that the district’s twelve facilities were old and in disrepair. During a table discussion at one of the first school consolidation public sessions a parent asked, “Why wasn’t this taken care of over the last 20 years?” With more than 70 percent of the District’s operating budget given over to wages, benefits and pensions, there is not much left for maintenance and repair.
Year after year and contract after contract, staff head count went up while the ratio of students to staff went down. Wages and benefits were inflated again and again, and are now disconnected from reality. While it is human nature for employees to want more, it is incumbent on the board to act responsibly. They have not.
If this board won’t do the right thing, the voters must. This referendum amounts to not much more than the cover-up of years of misaligned priorities and mismanagement.
On March 15, the voters can tell the D-112 Board that we won’t be fooled again.
I will vote no.
Richard Hunter
Highland Park