Both the Landmark and Suburban Life have stories this week about the $2.2 million deficit and the teacher's offer to freeze their pay if the referendum passes. I understand the school will spend around $35,000. to publicize the April referendum. It seems as though the majority of residents are saying they would vote NO. What is your opinion? A simple yes or no would work for me.
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RB Referendum
(112 posts)-
Posted Friday Sep 24, 2010 16:25 #
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No only will I vote NO, but I will work very hard to defeat this referendum.
Posted Friday Sep 24, 2010 20:20 # -
My opinion is a neither "yea" or "nea", as a vote should be based on what is presented...not preordained.
That said, based on the size of the numbers, my gut tells me RB will need both an approved referendum *and* teacher contract concessions to maintain the current offerings/programs/budget.
I don't know which is harder to get, one has a group of folks saying "no" before they know "how much" and the other has a legally binding contract~
The "community partnership" approach seems like the right approach, but I'm nervous about how many will vote (yea or nea) without knowing the impact of thier vote.
IMO, school finances are not very intuitive and we would all benefit from a better understanding of the factors, especially considering the size of the impact to our wallets (tax bill and property values).
Here are a bunch of links I found helpful:
http://www.iasb.com/pdf/understandingsf.pdf
http://www.rbhs.w-cook.k12.il.us/State%20of%20the%20District.pdf
http://www.isbe.net/finance/default.htm
http://www.isbe.net/sfms/budget/mechanics.pdfhttp://www.isbe.net/sfms/pdf/profile.pdf
ftp://ftpfinance.isbe.state.il.us/AFRProfile/2009/14016208017.pdfPosted Monday Sep 27, 2010 12:04 # -
Our taxes in general will go up January 1, 2011. This will be the result of the Bush tax cuts expiring. The health care taxes went up today or was it last week.
We don't know how much.
So, no, I don't need to know how much RB "needs". I can't afford whatever it is.
Posted Monday Sep 27, 2010 18:50 # -
The final suburban Cook 2009 multiplier has just been set at 3.3701.
It's an increase of 13.2 percent from 2008's 2.9786. The new county assessment ordinance will be devastating for many of us. I heard UNOFFICIAL estimates today that due to this new multiplier, and burden shifts from business and income properties, owner-occupiers [us] may see 20 percent bumps in property tax bills.
The property tax increases are additional to the current-law expiration of President Bush's tax cuts, which means higher federal income taxes -- as of today -- for all of us on Saturday, January 1.
To these, Governor Quinn has proposed increasing our Illinois income tax 66 percent.
The RB Board majority knew or should have known this. They ignored it. They ignored everyone's economic plight to fund the contract to which they agreed after its two leaders, Larry Herbst (president) and Sue Kleinmeyer (vice president) had been elected with the teachers' union's warm endorsement ("Happy together") in 2007. They knew the day they signed it they did not have the money to pay for it. We were their patsies.
They were elected, we get the bill.
My sense right now is that the referendum will go down.
And the clean-up at RB will get underway.
Posted Monday Sep 27, 2010 21:11 # -
[edited by admin - off topic]
Posted Tuesday Sep 28, 2010 00:43 # -
I feel the same; we should base our vote on what is presented. So far we have not seen a plan. Mr. Robling has given us some numbers that unfortunately will make it hard for most to vote YES to a referendum no matter what the plan. I, like anonymous, simply can’t afford it. That being said, I think the school should work quickly to bring a plan to the community. Show us exactly what will be cut. We were told months ago that 19 teachers would be cut to save money. It didn’t happen. Dr. Bonnette talked about cutting non conference sports to save. That didn’t happen. My opinion is, he should have made cuts, and revisited the referendum issue in a year. Maybe that would have had a bigger impact on what the teachers were offering. Dr. Bonnette seems to be taking the easy way out. When the referendum fails he will blame the community and he won’t have to be the bad guy.
I also don’t care what the Herbst board did. I don’t think any of them have extra sensory perception or a crystal ball to tell them what the economy would be like three years down the road. Revisiting the past is not helping us with the future of RB.Posted Tuesday Sep 28, 2010 10:05 # -
In 2008, the economy was tanking. The investment firms tanked in September. Recall the election in November.
When the board of ed presented the contract to the teachers, not only was the economic handwriting on the wall, it was written in bold graffiti. Again, recall the November election. The board of ed was in bed, sorry for the analogy, with the teachers and staff. Too many connections with them, such Kleinmeyer, Herbst, Bensfield, and McCloskey, Who represented us?
Posted Tuesday Sep 28, 2010 11:03 # -
Yes, the economy was tanking for years. It was not declared an official recession until November of 2008. The current RB contract was signed on April 8, 2008. I'm sure the negotiations for it were well before that date. All I'm saying is, did anyone really know how bad it would be? Did you? I sure didn't. If you look at other contracts for other districts, were we really that different?
Posted Tuesday Sep 28, 2010 11:46 # -
The contract for Jon Lamberson is equally obscene and irresponsible. All this just goes to prove that elections do matter, even at the local K-8 school board.
Did I know that it would be this bad? Of course not. That we would borrow 2.5 Trillion dollars in 18 or 19 months? Who could even fathom that---Obama would spend more money since taking office than the presidents from Washington to Reagan? Who could? It's historic.
The fact remains that even in good times, a 5% raise for 5 years straight is incredibly ridiculous. Nobody in the private sector would guarantee that. Ever.
We need to elect school board members who would treat our money as their own. And they need to spend our money with tightly clenched fists.
Posted Tuesday Sep 28, 2010 12:04 #
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