Woodland school board tables discussion on sales tax increase

Woodland Elementary District board members late Wednesday postponed a discussion on whether to retreat from their support for a 1 percentage point hike in the county sales tax to help finance construction expenses at all area schools.

Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik asked the Gurnee-based Woodland District 50 board to reconsider its backing of a schools sales tax. However, Kovarik wasn't present for Wednesday's session.

District 50 board member Terry Hall, via a speaker telephone hookup in the meeting room, said she wanted to hear from Kovarik and requested that the discussion be postponed.

Last week, Kovarik sent a letter to District 50 board members expressing disappointment with them for voting in favor of seeking a higher county sales tax. Part of her concern is that shoppers would bypass Gurnee for Wisconsin if Lake County's 6.5 percent sales tax goes up.

The village of Gurnee worked to become a commercial powerhouse partially to enhance the property tax base for the school districts, wrote Kovarik.

Elected board members at Woodland, Millburn Elementary District, Waukegan Unit District and Big Hollow Elementary District have passed resolutions supporting a sales tax increase referendum in November. The topic was discussed Tuesday by board members at Diamond Lake Elementary District 76 in Mundelein and is expected to resurface next month.

Under a new state law, school boards representing 51 percent of the student population of a county are allowed to pass resolutions to put the sales tax referendum measure on the ballot. Local county board members can put the tax hike to a vote on their own or at the request of schools.

Sales tax money would help pay for school renovations, architects, new buildings, land acquisition and other construction-related expenses across Lake County. The money also could applied toward paying off debt from previous building projects.

At minimum, it would take support from the 11 largest of Lake County's 45 school districts to get the question on the ballot.

Lake County school districts would receive $550 per student annually if the 1 percentage point sales tax boost were to garner voter approval. Woodland would get about $3.85 million under that formula.

Woodland board member Michael Bond helped to bring about the schools' ability to seek a sales tax in his other role as a state senator.

Bond, a Grayslake Democrat, was among the legislators in October who overrode Gov. Rod Blagojevich's veto of the law allowing pursuit of the sales tax. He was absent on the night last month when Woodland board members voted 5-0 to back putting the sales tax question before voters in November.

Cook is the only county prohibited by the law from seeking the school construction sales tax.