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TIF Impact on Schools

(39 posts)
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  1. TomJacobs
    Member

    How would a TIF impact the schools? I believe this has been and remains to be the main unanswered question in this debate.

    At the first Workshop IV on Saturday February 24, I heard Phil McKenna say that numbers documenting the financial impact on the school districts have been provided to the school boards. The representative of School District 96 who was present said that the school board needed some time to absorb those numbers before commenting on them publicly.

    The 28 February Landmark article on page 9, titled "Riverside workshops over, but questions still abound" states the following approx. half-way through the text: "...(residents) wanted more information from the Village on how a TIF district would affect other taxing districts, especially schools. According to Philip McKenna, the village's financial consultant on the TIF district, those numbers were not available, because neither of the school districts in the village had yet responded to his firm's efforts to calculate estimates of how a TIF might affect their revenue base."

    Which one is accurate? Does anybody know what the actual status of the McKenna estimates that look at TIF impact on schools is?

    If I am not correctly representing what was stated on Saturday 24, please let me know what was said. If the Landmark isn't correct, we should insist on them publishing a correction.

    Thanks to anyone who can help to clarify.

    Posted Saturday Mar 3, 2007 20:15 #

  2. Elisa
    Member

    Tom, you are right. There seems to be a lot of avoidance regarding this topic. I wonder if numbers were presented and then when new issues came about, they had/have to rethink things. I will say, though, that the silence from the schools is curious.

    Do you - or does anyone - know when or if a meeting has been scheduled? I believe that I heard that the school board was going to have a public meeting on this subject.

    And does anyone know when the Board will discuss the TIF again? Now that they took a welcome and much-needed break, when will they take up the baton again?

    Posted Saturday Mar 3, 2007 21:59 #

  3. Catherine
    Member

    Now that I have learned here that Lamberson is new to the superintendency and to the town, I wonder less that he is so quiet on the issue. Perhaps he thinks it ill becomes him to come into town like gangbusters. Still, this is not a good reason to speak up if there will be problem. Perhaps the parents will have to ask the questions instead.

    Posted Tuesday Mar 6, 2007 15:44 #

  4. Elisa
    Member

    I understand what you mean, but I disagree because of all that he has tackled in his short time here. First of all it is his job to speak up on issues that affect the schools - that's why he was hired. And he has not been shy about taking on controversial topics since his arrival: the kindergarten schedule, next year's calendar, major changes coming down the pike with regards to advanced placement in math at the elementary schools, the middle school changes...he certainly does not seem afraid of conflict, but for some reason he has been silent.

    Posted Tuesday Mar 6, 2007 16:33 #

  5. spatny
    Member

    He also abruptly removed the previous Principal at Hauser, who was educator of the year the previous year, and brought in a Lake Forest cohort to replace him (after a rather unhappy interim shift of the Hollywood Principal - unhappy for her, I believe. This looks like it was a means to replace the Junior High format with the Middle School approach. I think he had experience with TIFs in Barrington and Lake Forest - might be an answer there.

    Posted Tuesday Mar 6, 2007 16:43 #

  6. MikeT
    Member

    Don't forget the School Board, too. Dist 96 is a partnership between the board and the superintendant. When the school board was before the TIF consultant on Nov 8 of 2006 for the purpose of asking questions, I sat in the back and listened to one of the questions that were said by one of the board members. He asked, during his role as a representative of the school district to try to find out about this thing called a 'tif' in Riverside ...

    Whether the town would have the 'institutional will' to support the developers once the developers were incented to come to Riverside thru the TIF?

    He recalled the notorious reputation Riverside has (among developers) with making development difficult.

    This, of course, is indicative of the point of view of this board and of this superintendant's on tifs.

    It is very much different than the point of view of the BurrRidge school leaders, I discovered.

    When I learned that BurrRidge, a community very similar to Riverside in its size and values placed on schools, had a TIF opposed by the Pleasantdale school district there, I called the superintendant and spoke at length with him.

    He told me that the school board was completely on the same side as him - and in fact he could not unilaterally move in this opposition, and the board there voted 7-0 to oppose the TIF. They even resorted to lawsuit(s).

    --more details on this here--
    http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=35&replies=38#post-508

    Posted Tuesday Mar 6, 2007 16:59 #

  7. Lonnie
    Member

    Mike, this won't happen in Riverside where it's "go along, get along" politics between caucus chosen elected officials that usually run unopposed. To them, the most important thing is to avoid controversy even if it means screwing the taxpayers. Then they move from the school board to the village board, kind of a shell game.

    Posted Tuesday Mar 6, 2007 17:09 #

  8. Elisa
    Member

    (Actually, the new principal at Hauser was from CPS. He brought the Central School principal from Lake Forest.) But you're right - that was a huge controversy. I don't think that he is worried about taking on something like gangbusters - he's already done that!

    Posted Tuesday Mar 6, 2007 17:15 #

  9. MikeT
    Member

    There might be something to Lonnie's observation about the Riverside Caucus. I won't call it like the Politburo, since that might not ring accurate. But I will say that I bet the new d 96 superintendant is not familiar with the Caucus and the lack of a structured opposition to the incumbent powers in Riverside.

    Posted Tuesday Mar 6, 2007 17:30 #

  10. MikeT
    Member

    do we know when the d 96 tif meeting is scheduled?

    same with the edc meeting?

    what id d 208's position on the tif?

    Posted Thursday Mar 8, 2007 22:40 #

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