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Lisle District 202 voters reject tax levy cut

Willing to vote against a cut in their taxes, voters in Lisle Unit District 202 rejected a plan to reduce the school district's property tax levy by roughly $1.2 million, according to Tuesday's unofficial election results.

With 100% of the precincts reporting, unofficial totals showed 2,344 votes (69%) against cutting taxes, and 1,066 votes (31%) in favor of it.

If approved, the tax cut would have reduced District 202's education fund to $17.15 million, and lowered property taxes by about $67 per $100,000 of a home's value. District officials said the loss of funding would have forced them to consider cost-cutting measures, including increasing class sizes, reducing the number of teachers, reducing support personnel positions, reducing the number of honors courses and eliminating 10 percent of athletic and extracurricular activities.

The binding measure was proposed by a group of residents who argue that District 202 has overtaxed property owners for years. The group collected more than 1,400 signatures to put the question on the ballot. The residents were able to propose the ballot question because of a state law that says school districts with an "adequacy level" for education funding that's 110 percent or more are eligible for referendum questions seeking tax cuts. The adequacy level reflects how much the state believes a school district should be spending to educate students in comparison to what the district actually spends.

District 202 has an adequacy rate of 149 percent.

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