Spending controls are key school issue

Illinois has now achieved the dubious honor of being the No. 2 worst property tax state in all of The Union. The upcoming April 2 local election with early voting starting March 18 is vital to our future property taxes.

A case in point is the U-46 board election where four of seven seats are up for election. A U-46 board majority, or four seats, controls nearly 75 percent of our property tax bills.

Past boards have wreaked financial havoc by approving or by approving and abating tax levies associated with maximum annual budget increases.

For example, the current board approved an increase of over 40 million budget dollars while student enrollment is declining. This increase is driven mainly by their approval of adding 54 new non-teacher positions to the payroll.

Jeanette Ward was the only incumbent running for re-election who voted against this.

A financially responsible board would push back on such new costs or look to offset new costs with reductions elsewhere. The opposite has been true at U-46. There has been zero real action addressing such financial offsets.

Instead, we see annual ideation and excuses to spend more and more.

Property tax payers are not ATMs. Or are we?

We should support board members who care about students, parents, teachers and also tax payers and who push back on unrestrained increased spending. It's only right for taxpayers to be well represented on the board since it's our money that's running the show.

Four U-46 board candidates who bring the balanced approach that I've described are Jeanette Ward, Tina Rio, Ina Silva-Sobolewski and Daniel Hancock. I hope you will join me in voting for them in the April 2 election.

Steve Frei

Bartlett