St. Charles schools headed for fall tax hike referendum

A debate that proposed closing schools in St. Charles Unit District 303 to cut costs switched tracks Monday night in favor of a tax increase to keep schools open.

School board members voted unanimously to table all discussion of school closures for now. They instead directed the district staff to create a tax increase referendum for the November ballot.

The increase, which could be as much as $60 million, would keep all the district's elementary and high schools open. It would also provide new cash to expand and renovate Thompson Middle School.

Those renovations would allow for the gradual closure of Haines Middle School. The Haines closure is expected to save the district about $2 million a year by having only two middle schools - Thompson and Wredling.

School board members first began the school closure discussion because they feared the potential loss of millions of dollars in state education funding through pension reform, property tax freezes and changes to the funding formula. All those issues are still in limbo.

The district got a taste of what may be in store via a decision to change the allocation of special education funding made by the state late last week. St. Charles schools will lose about $1.2 million a year in that change.

The monetary details of the tax increase proposal haven't been calculated yet, but school board members made it clear that school closures may be back on the table if the tax increase fails. Board member Jim Gaffney said the referendum is the only way to get a true measure of what the community wants the board to do.

"If they want us to leave the middle schools the way they are, let the public tell us that," Gaffney said. "If you're comfortable leaving your kids in a school that's substandard, OK."

It will likely take several months to sort out the details of what the referendum proposal will actually ask for. Superintendent Don Schlomann said the goal is to structure the question in a way that doesn't increase the tax burden on district residents until 2018.

That year is key because the district will retire major bond debt at that time. The owner of a home worth $300,000 is expected to see a reduction of about $500 on the tax bill when the debt is retired.

The school board must still take a vote to formally place a referendum on the November ballot. That vote may not occur until as far in the future as August, after the summer break.