Lake Zurich school district tries to stop facilities vote
Lake Zurich schools officials are considering asking for a restraining order to stop next week's Special Education District of Lake County meeting where members are expected to vote on a $26.5 million request for facilities.
SEDOL administrators visited several of the 36 public member school districts, including Lake Zurich, this month to garner support for the construction plan.
SEDOL educates about 550 students with learning disabilities in programs at its Gages Lake campus. It provides services to 800 more students enrolled in special education classes at Lake County public schools.
Officials say a new school is needed to house students with severe behavioral disorders and emotional disabilities. The money would also renovate existing facilities.
Half of SEDOL's member districts must approve of the construction bonds for the measure to pass. That vote is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Laremont School gym on SEDOL's Gages Lake campus.
"We just think it's been too big a rush," District 95 Superintendent Brian Knutson said Friday. "We've had this information for just this month. We've had a $40 million facilities issue on the table for over a year now."
District 95 wants SEDOL to delay the vote until August.
Many area school districts got their first look at SEDOL's construction plan this week. Mundelein High School District 120 will get a presentation on the SEDOL plan just a day before the expected vote.
District 95's school board Thursday authorized its representative on SEDOL's governing board to vote "no" for the bonds, if the district isn't able to stop the meeting.
"I have serious reservations about this whole proposal," District 95 trustee John Kropf said. "With the magnitude of this project, to make a decision on this in such a short period of time is absolutely unreasonable."
District 95 officials are also talking with other school districts to pressure SEDOL to delay the Wednesday vote.
If approved Wednesday, each school district's share may be calculated based on a formula of 70 percent property tax revenues and 30 percent usage. Absent a specific formula, districts could pay 100 percent based on the property taxes they generate.
District 95 could be charged $164,993 annually for 20 years under the 70/30 split, or $221,480 per year for 20 years if based 100 percent on property tax revenues.
How the vote goes down is up to the governing board members, SEDOL Director Bill Delp said Friday.
Delp said he knows he has the support of some school districts and doesn't anticipate the vote will be for contributions based 100 percent on property tax revenues.
The Grayslake Elementary District 46 school board voted 4-3 against the SEDOL bonds this week, citing concerns about project costs.
"We didn't get a very detailed breakdown of how they were going to spend that money," said Michael Linder, District 46 school board president. "We hope to decrease our usage of SEDOL. We're talking about bringing more (programs) back."
District 95 also will study the feasibility of pulling out of SEDOL by 2009. The district may either offer some special education programs in-house, find private providers, or set up a smaller, more flexible co-op with other school districts.
District 95 has 22 students enrolled in SEDOL programs this year. In early 2006, the district pulled its early childhood special education students out of SEDOL and created an in-house program.