What is real message in referendums like that of Dist. 214?

Election after election and budget meeting after budget meeting, the Northwest Suburban High School District 214 school board incumbents and “slate” members, and top administrative officials, respectively, tout their strong record of fiscal responsibility and ongoing attention to building needs. It’s a winning message — literally.

Now the school district has revealed to its residents, in its ongoing phone survey, that $850 million in expenditures are “necessary to keep our students and teachers safe, warm and dry.” Have these administrators and elected officials been lying to us all along? Are they attempting to deceive the voters now to scare the public into approving a referendum? Or is this all a facilities assessment project that has snowballed out of control?

The survey itself includes a detailed breakdown of the $850 million. Are these expenditures necessary for safety, warmth, and dryness? You be the judge.

• New and “more modern” furniture, new paint, lights and cabinets.

• “Updated spaces for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics programming in all schools, including science labs, art and music rooms, and theaters.”

• New pools at two high schools and a replacement pool at a third.

• “Innovative spaces” including “improvements to collaborative learning areas through the district, including Learning Commons that facilitate hands on projects, peer learning and informal discussions.”

• Remodeled more attractive main entrances.

• Significant renovations to “outdoor and indoor athletic spaces” to provide “students more opportunities for physical education and athletic competition” (which indicates expansion, not repair).

Finally, there are items on the wish list that appear reasonable, such as roof and HVAC replacement. But, again, community members have repeatedly been told that the district was being planful and doing this work out of its ordinary tax revenue. After all, the Director of Operations ethics violations of two years ago were explained, in part, as a trip to Trane facilities which was appropriate because of an ongoing process of mechanical system upgrades.

What’s really happening here? It seems more likely than not that the district is trying to scare the public with the $850 million figure, so that later on, they can reduce that figure, down to the $400 million alternate “hypothetical funding level” of the survey, then claim that they are following the “will of the voters” by prudently spending an amount that is less than the worst-case, but will still, in the run-up to a referendum, be claimed to be the absolute minimum that’s needed for keeping “students and teachers safe, warm and dry.”

That’s a disappointment. Voters want school districts to prioritize basic spending on mechanicals and infrastructure, but school administrators and elected officials don’t seem to get the message — or, more likely, they fully understand it, but the incentives are all wrong.

No first lady has visited a school to commend them on replacing the roof or plumbing out of its ongoing tax revenue. No board members have gotten their names on a plaque for funding a new HVAC system. No one gives out “Blue Ribbon” awards for asbestos replacement or ADA compliance. And despite the fact that voters have, apparently, been misled about the fiscal prudence of the existing school board, it’s unlikely that any of them will actually be voted out of office as a result, while touting new highly visible programs is a sure path to re-election.

And of course, this isn’t applicable just to District 214. Over and over, local school districts have brought referendums to voters asking for bonds for deferred maintenance, or have “bundled” deferred maintenance along with other building projects.

In Barrington Area Unit District 220, the school board asked voters for $185 million in 2019, failed, then came back and won approval for $147 million in 2020. But this still wasn’t enough and in 2024, they asked for another $64 million by bundling a much-desired auditorium rebuild with other projects.

In 2022, Arlington Heights Elementary School District 25 just barely won approval by a margin of 50 votes for $75 million in bonds which combined new classroom space for all-day kindergarten with projects to remedy deferred maintenance issues. And in Prospect Heights District 23, three such “bundled” referendums in a row have failed, most recently this past April.

It should go without saying, but apparently needs to be said, that maintaining facilities is a part of sound governance, not an “extra” to be paid for with new taxes.

• Elizabeth Bauer, janetheactuary@gmail.com, is a former candidate for Northwest Suburban High School District 214 Board of Education, an actuary and mom to three Rolling Meadows High School graduates.