Dist. 200 will pay debt after an 18-year delay

If West Chicago's Fox Hollow subdivision were a car, the repo man would've visited Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 a long time ago.

School board members voted to repay a $186,000 debt to West Chicago Elementary District 33 that's nearly 20 years old on Wednesday night.

It goes back to the time when District 200 annexed the subdivision away from District 33.

If not for the unsettling dreams of a retired District 33 superintendent, the debt may have been forgotten entirely.

John Hennig was the District 33 superintendent back in 1990 when the Fox Hollow subdivision was annexed into District 200 by the Wheaton Warrenville board.

The residents of the subdivision were on the hook at the time to help repay the cost of two new schools in District 33. Those schools are still the newest buildings in the district, but are about 15 years old now.

In a taxation quirk, the county didn't automatically divert the property tax payments to District 33 as part of the tax collection and distribution process.

Instead, the money went to District 200, which had an agreement in place with District 33 to collect the money and reimburse District 33.

But at some point, staff from both districts left or retired and the regularly scheduled payments fell off the books. Only about $90,000 of a total amount of nearly $276,000 was paid out.

Then, just recently, Hennig phoned the current superintendent of District 33, Edward Leman, about the money after being startled out of sleep at 3 a.m. with the realization that the debt may never have been fully repaid.

"We did some research and were not able to determine the debt was paid other than the $90,000," Leman said.

District 200 was an unwitting deadbeat.

"It was kind of a difficult and awkward topic to bring up with District 200," Leman said. "We basically asked District 200 to finish up the payments. It's as much my district's fault for not asking for the money every year as it is their fault for not handing it over. And they really responded in an incredibly professional manner."

In fact, District 200 will repay the debt in full within the next 30 days.

The result is neither a financial windfall for District 33 nor a huge loss for District 200.

All the money is specifically bond and interest fund money, meaning both districts can only use the cash to pay off existing debt.

District 200 staff said the loss of the $186,000 will not create any difficulties in paying off any of its current debts.