District 120 OKs fifth balanced budget; tax hike may be in offing

On the same night they approved their fifth-consecutive balanced budget, Mundelein High School District 120 board members said they'll likely need to ask voters for more tax revenue soon.

The $32 million budget plan adopted Tuesday shows how far the district has come since the start of this decade, when officials had run up a multimillion-dollar deficit. Despite the recession and area-wide governmental financial problems, administrators are predicting a roughly $400,000 surplus for the 2010 fiscal year, which began July 1.

But the board's frugal financial planning doesn't change the fact the Hawley Street campus is crowded, aging and - according to officials and community members who've studied the issue - in need of potentially costly improvements.

Officials haven't developed a referendum question, nor have they set a date to go to voters. But during Tuesday night's board meeting, they discussed whether to put a plan on ballots in November 2010.

That would give officials and proponents of an eventual plan more than a year to draft a question and publicly promote the plan.

"You need that time to come up with a game plan and properly educate the community," board President Edwin Specht said Wednesday.

District 120 leaders last put a financial plan to voters in November 2006. The proposal, which would have raised the district's tax rate by 24 cents, was rejected.

It was the fifth revenue-raising proposal shot down by voters in two years. The community last approved a tax-rate increase in 1995.

Last year, a community group recommended a nearly $80 million facility plan calling for new classrooms and science labs, a new auditorium, an expanded cafeteria and other improvements.

Not all of the proposed improvements are space-related. The school should move into the 21st century by improving Internet access and technology cabling, Specht said.

"We have to go to the community and say these are the facility needs for Mundelein High School," Specht said. "And we need to make that case, and put the referendum before the community."

Although the board received the community group's report in May 2008, members wanted to wait until Superintendent Jody Ware, who came aboard a year ago, was settled in before debating the campus' needs.

Officials could develop fundraising plans to cover some or all of the work proposed by the community group last year.

"This is definitely the time to move forward," board Vice President Vicky Kennedy said.