Be careful what you promise with new boundaries, District 300

The long wait is nearly over. The Community Unit District 300 school board is just a vote away from setting new attendance boundaries for its middle and high schools.

Monday's vote brings to a close a two-year process that began last year with the redrawing of elementary school attendance boundaries.

Since 2006, some 40 district employees and community members have been meeting to sift through maps, enrollment projections, policy guidelines and other data to redraw the District 300 map.

Their most pressing task has been to shift students from crowded elementary, middle and high schools on the east side to under-capacity schools on the west side, particularly Hampshire middle and high school.

The effort at the elementary school level has yielded mixed results, as we have seen this year.

Golfview and Perry elementary schools are near capacity, and the school board will have to look at short- and long-term solutions just one year after new boundaries were put in place.

One hopes the middle and high school boundaries will present a more permanent solution.

The holdup of $30 million in capital development money from the state will complicate the problem. That money was to be used to renovate the district's middle schools, expanding their capacity and taking kids out of mobile classrooms.

It's puzzling why the district, though, ever counted on this money materializing -- considering the state hasn't doled out such funding since 2002, and that the district is merely eligible, but not entitled to receive the funding.

The district is hoping to work around the state's delay by issuing $45 million in bonds this year. This is the remainder of the $185 million voters approved in 2006.

District officials say refunding existing bonds will enable the district to keep its promise to taxpayers to keep the bond tax rate at or below 47 cents per $100 of equalized assessed value.

This isn't reflected in documents prepared by the district's bond counsel, which show the tax rate rising above 48 cents in 2012 and 2013.

District officials and the district's bond counsel say the district would use cash on hand to keep the tax rate down in those years.

While the district could do this, this should be reflected in the documentation. I'm not saying the tax rate will rise above 47 cents, but it's something to keep an eye on.

Board President Joe Stevens raised a good point about the promises made to taxpayers, particularly the pledge that a fourth elementary school would be built on the west side.

It appears there may be enough bond money left over to build another elementary school, though it may be on the east side, where the crowded schools are.

But there probably won't be enough left to do a number of projects, including elementary school renovations, that the district said it would complete.

I guess that's what happens when you make promises you can't keep.