Enrollment down, but tax rates up

With the state-required filing of student enrollment now in the books, we finally get a look at Indian Prairie Unit District 204’s numbers for 2011.

To give you a very brief history of recent activity, let’s recap the past five years. In 2006, the district came to taxpayers claiming an urgent need for more school space and promoted a referendum to borrow $125 million for a third high school to be built at 75th street and Route 59. A similar tax referendum failed in 2005 due in part to taxpayers’ complaints of a lack of independent analysis that the school was actually needed and that the district did not disclose where the school would be built.

As you may know, after a disinformation campaign funded in large part by unions and vendors who did business with the district, the district pitted subdivision against subdivision and a referendum passed in 2006. After a failed land grab and millions more wasted on attorneys and damages, the school actually cost taxpayers $150 million to build and now costs $3.5 million a year to operate. In addition, residents sued the district claiming a bait and switch when the school was built nowhere near the promised location used to secure a yes vote in the referendum.

Now, let’s flash forward to the present and look at just a few of the startling numbers drawn from district 204’s enrollment reports:

Ÿ Elementary school enrollment is down more than 450 students from last year.

Ÿ Elementary school enrollment has declined for six years in a row

Ÿ High school enrollment is lower than all three of the infamous enrollment models the district presented as “proof” that a third high school was needed.

The bottom line? Taxes rates up, enrollment down, and a third high school that was never needed.

Paul White

Naperville