Batavia inclined to collect a bit more money for schools

Schools and park districts in Batavia may get more money from new residential development, but it will come with more strings attached.

The city council, meeting as a committee of the whole, decided to raise the per-acre price from $100,000 to $125,000.

However, it wants more approval over what the districts, particularly the Batavia school district, spend the money on.

"So we are just telling the school board 'You get to keep the money we have been giving you, and we trust you less," Alderman Dan Chanzit said.

But several aldermen and audience members questioned what the school district has been spending money on.

"I also look at our school district as a bottomless pit," Alderman Susan Stark said. She said the school district needs a "more transparent" budget, and that it wasn't clear how money had been spent on capital projects related to enrollment growth.

State law requires the money to be spent on capital projects. The fees are supposed to help school and park districts handle the increase in users that come from the housing, before they are able to collect increased property taxes from the properties.

Sylvia Keppel, founder of Batavians for Responsible Government, noted the Batavia school district's current capital-projects plan still includes installing two artificial-turf fields at Batavia High School. An argument could be made that if enrollment increases the school will need more fields, and that those would be eligible for the money, she said.

The committee decided to keep the current formula for determining how many schoolchildren particular types of housing would generate, the ideal enrollment for different types of schools and the required acreage for those kinds of schools. Batavia school district officials had suggested changes that would have called for fewer students per school and more acreage per school. For example, it would set an ideal middle school enrollment at 900 students. Rotolo Middle School currently enrolls about 1,500 students. Kris Monn, the school district's assistant superintendent for business, said June 2 that if enrollment increases, it would likely add on to Rotolo, not build another middle school.

Alderman Susan Stark noted that the Batavia school district had not requested that the ordinance be changed. Mayor Jeff Schielke brought the issue forward because the city hadn't changed the money amount since 2000. Scott Buening, the city's community development director, estimated that residential land is worth about $260,000 an acre now.

Motions to raise the amount to $175,000 an acre, over three years or over nine years, failed. So did a motion to repeal the ordinance.

Most of Batavia is in the Batavia school district, but parts are in the West Aurora and Geneva school districts. Most of the town is in the Batavia Park District, but small parts are in the Fox Valley and Geneva park districts.