Today’s Daily Herald reports that District 203 Superintendent Alan Leis says that as much as $100 million in recommended facility improvements will likely not be finalized enough for a spring 2007 referendum. If it isn’t done this spring it will have to wait until spring 2008. Current projects being discussed include:
- Renovating Naperville Central High School for $72 million;
- Creating an early childhood center for $11.25 million;
- Renovating and expanding Mill Street Elementary $11 million;*
- Improving the traffic flow around Naperville North High School and Prairie Elementary for $2 million;*
- Synthetic turfing both high school football fields for $1.2 million;*
- Renovating Naperville North’s pool to meet IHSA standards for $900,000;* and
- Improving security at Prairie, Washington Junior High School and Ranch View Elementary for $400,000.*
An earlier proposal to create a new Naperville Central High School for as much as $125 million was scrapped over the past month. A referendum is required if the district plans to spend more than $59 million.
Notes:
* Figures from “Disrict [sic] 203 renovation plan may cost up to $72 million” in the Bolingbrook Sun 11-10-06
Comments 2
These tax increases are crazy. Does the school district really think the taxpayers will go for this?
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 2:24 pm ¶Hi James - thanks for writing!
There are certainly a number of issues here - but the basic tax issue to me is that the school funding formula relying heavily on property taxes is just plain bad. When you depend mostly on a bad system, it’s hard to make good decisions. We need school funding reform - and that’s been recognized since before Jim Edgar was governor. The truth is neither party in the state capitol has (yet) delivered it - and until we get it, we’re going to continue to look at decisions we don’t like going forward.
Posted 05 May 2007 at 6:08 am ¶Post a Comment