Dist. 15 parents willing to sacrifice, is board?
(Read to the District 15 school board on April 14): It is obvious the fiscal health of our district is seriously ill. It is this board's responsibility to resuscitate our budget and nurse the district back to stable financial health.
I hope you reflect on three alternatives before you try to saddle us with tens of millions of dollars of debt payable over decades.
First, address how much money we spend. Cut teachers. Cut staff. Cut student activities. Cut student programs. Bitter medicine, yes. As I have two children in the district, I speak with flesh and skin at stake.
Sometimes one must cut to cure, even amputate - not an act of failure but a necessary choice amid unpleasant options. Cut to cure, borrowing will kill.
I suspect some of you cannot stomach such medicine, to which I suggest a second alternative.
Address who we pay. This board should renegotiate union contracts. Your teachers extracted disproportionate pay and benefits in times of extreme economic turmoil. You have immunized teachers to any adverse financial consequence during the worst recession since the Great Depression, at financial peril to the taxpayer and the educational detriment of our children.
Union leaders will not willingly sacrifice until facing a sharp budgetary scalpel. Show it to them.
I suspect some of you will not be able to stomach dispensing such medicine, to which I offer a more palatable alternative.
Address the taxpayer. With the same reasoning and persuasive argument required to convince a minimal majority of this board to mortgage our future, ask the taxpayer for these funds this November. Do not fear the ballot box but find comfort in the will of the people.
You face the proverbial fork in the road. I hope you choose the less-traveled path requiring hard choices and sacrifice, which the community is willing to endure. I fear you will foolishly follow Dr. Chapman down the seductive and well-worn path, borrowing money today with a promise to repay later.
Later will arrive soon with our debt greater, our crisis deeper, adverse affects on our children's education more traumatic. Once facing more draconian choices, you may have to answer to charges of financial malpractice.
Dr. M. Bryan Neal
Rolling Meadows