Norridge School District 80 officials have begun moving forward to find alternate solutions after voters overwhelmingly struck down a $60.6 million tax increase referendum on Nov. 8.
Among the 4,733 votes cast in Leyden and Norwood Park townships, 77 percent voted against the referendum, and nearly 23 percent voted for it, according to election results from the Cook County Clerk.
District 80 Superintendent Paul O’Malley had campaigned in public venues across Norridge and Harwood Heights during a four-month push to get support behind the measure to raise taxes to lift the school district out of a $1.8 million deficit that was expected within the next two years.
In June, when O’Malley first publicly announced the district’s plan to seek public support for a referendum, he said that without an increase in taxpayer-supported funding, money for classrooms would be shifted to fund critical infrastructure needs that exist in both Giles and Leigh schools, and staff levels and after-school programs would be cut.
The tax increase was warranted, according to O’Malley, to address needs in the aging schools by tearing down Giles and Leigh schools and building a new combined school.
Now that taxpayers have rejected the increase, the lingering question is what the school district’s next move will be.
Responding to the result of the referendum, O’Malley said he trusted that taxpayers “made the best decisions for themselves,” and said voters “felt the referendum wasn’t conducive to their financial conditions.”
Both sides agree the school district needs taxpayers’ help, including 30-year Norridge resident Riccardo Mora, a regular at town hall and school board meetings since the referendum was announced. A critic of the school board’s spending, Mora plastered his minivan with “Vote No on $60.6 million” bumper stickers, which he drove around town during the weeks leading up to Election Day.
He said his openness about his disdain for the tax increase subjected him to ridicule from supporters of the referendum — many of them parents of children enrolled at Giles or Leigh.
“People (on Facebook) call me a child hater and education hater, but this is my home,” Mora said. “There’s no denying that the school district needs some money, but they don’t know how to live within their means. It’s like if you’re making $500 per month and spending $1,000.”
Mora, whose daughter once attended the schools, blames the school board for driving the district into debt, and said he plans to call for the resignation of two of its long-sitting members.
Referendum supporter Frank Tribuzio said the referendum probably didn’t pass because most voters didn’t want to or couldn’t take the hit of a substantial tax increase.
“Those who supported the November 8th referendum knew it was reaching very high,” Tribuzio said in an email. “In the end, the financial strain it would cause some residents was difficult to face, (and) I do think a lesser amount would go over better.”
In describing its budgetary needs as critical, school district officials have also said security at the schools is not up to par with modern-day standards. O’Malley said while some school districts have spent millions to build new secure entrances, District 80 lacks the funding needed to pay for those upgrades and to install secure locks on classroom doors and to equip rooms with phones that connect classrooms to 911.
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Faced with looming financial intervention from the Illinois State Board of Education, the District 80 board has a budget deficit reduction plan in place beginning in 2017-2018 with $750,000 in cuts that target full-day kindergarten, band, music, art, sports, and other programs. An additional $800,000 in cuts had been standing by in the case that the referendum didn’t pass. Beginning in 2018-19, those reductions would affect special education, support staff, nurses, custodians and other staff positions.
The district could decide to try again with another referendum in April, but district officials will have to work within a two-month timeframe to come up with a new proposal to meet the County Clerk’s Jan. 17 filing deadline for a ballot question.
“I can’t imagine anyone wanting to see the programs we’ve heard about be cut,” Tribuzio said. “(Supporters of the referendum) knew it was reaching very high, but we believe education and its facilities are extremely important, not only for the children — present and future — but for the community itself.”
Natalie Hayes is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.