Dist. 204 sends plan to keep taxes to state board

The Illinois Association of School Boards soon will receive a rather controversial resolution, courtesy of Indian Prairie Unit District 204.

Board members Monday night, by a 3-2 vote, asked the association to add President Curt Bradshaw's plan to withhold monthly payroll tax payments to the state department of revenue to its annual legislative agenda. Indian Prairie is currently owed $14.4 million in back payments from the state.

Bradshaw called the resolution a collaborative solution rather than a hostile solution and reiterated his belief that the district has a responsibility to find a solution rather than be a victim.

"Currently, school districts are forwarding millions in income tax payments to the same entity that is behind $1.4 billion in payments to school districts," Bradshaw wrote in his draft resolution. "Allowing school districts to set off income tax payments due the state against amounts owed by the state to school districts will provide school districts critical funding and lessen the impact of past-due payments on district operations."

Several board members initially thought Bradshaw was joking when he first brought the plan forward last month. By Monday night's vote, some, including Cathy Piehl, came around to his way of thinking, while others, like Dawn DeSart and Christine Vickers were pushed further away.

"As you got more serious (about the resolution), I got concerned that it was trying to circumvent the whole budgetary process of the legislature," Piehl said. "But I've come to realize that by setting something like this up, it actually puts a checks and balances in place with our government."

Former IASB president and current Indian Prairie board member Mark Metzger said the action gives the association lobbyists a "theme to go back to."

"In addition to creating an interesting and clever solution to the financial problem the school district's face, it gives our lobbyists a very effective way to keep a message in front of the General Assembly as they work on the rest of the bills," Metzger said. "Even if this weren't the best idea in the world, the fact that it gives an ongoing conversation is itself a valuable tool."

DeSart, however, said she couldn't be more opposed to moving forward with the resolution.

"I believe this setoff resolution is shortsighted and ill-conceived. It's a slippery slope that if completely thought out, I believe most would come to that same conclusion," DeSart said before pondering where the state would get money if every district did withhold the taxes. "This is not our money. It's the money our employees owe the state of Illinois in the form of taxes."

Vickers voted against moving forward as well, saying she is afraid of "opening the can of worms."

"It's not just about school districts. This is about all the other agencies that are benefactors of state monies, and if one segment of the benefactors decide they want to make an action against the legislation, everyone else could follow the same avenue," Vickers said. "To me that perpetuates an already very poor situation that we have in the state."

IASB Associate Executive Director Ben Schwarm said last week that once a final draft is submitted, the proposed resolution will be researched and eventually brought before the body's resolution committee. If the committee approves the resolution, it will go before a vote of more than 900 statewide school districts at the association's annual November conference.

That chance alone was enough for Susan Rasmus to support it.

"If there's this much of a chance, why aren't we trying it?" Rasmus said. "What's the cost to us?"