McHenry County Blog

A majority of the Fox River Grove Elementary School Board are up for election next April.

And four people have filed to run:

• Tim Hatfield
• Stephen Pickering
• Patrick Riley
• Patrick Wall

Only Pickering is listed in the McHenry County Yearbook as an incumbent.

The other incumbents whose terms are expiring are

• Pat Hughes
• Lisa Anderson
• Kris Germain

Filing is open until the close of business on December 26th.

Those thinking about running need to file a Statement of Economic Interest with the County Clerk and attach its receipt with a staple to one’s petitions and Statement of Candidacy. And, be sure to number the pages.

West Elementary School in Crystal Lake.

Looking at maximum tax rates for school districts in McHenry County, I discovered that Fox River Grove Elementary School District 3 is blocked from raising its taxes not by the Property Tax Cap, but by having reached it $3.50 per $100 value statutory tax rate limit.

The Board asked for $4.3 million, but was allowed a bit over $4 million due to having reached the tax rate allowed by law.

The grade school district on the east side of Wonder Lake has the same situation.

Harrison Elementary School District 36′s Education Fund is at its $3.50 per $100 of assessed valuation maximum.

Of the other districts, Harvard Unit District is due to bump up against its $4 per $100 of AV maximum Education Fund rate next year.

If Harvard could get the extra 3% allowed by the tax cap, its rate would be $4.03.

And all school districts near their statutory tax rate limits have to worry about the projected 9% decrease in assessment base.

But, because of the maximum rate governing is Education Fund it will be able to increase its Education Fund by about 2.3%.

Districts like the the following have not reached their maximum Education Fund tax limit:

• Cary Grade School
• Crystal Lake Grade School
• Marengo-Union Grade School
• Richmond-Spring Grove (Nippersink) Grade School
• McHenry Grade School
• Prairie Grove Grade School
• Riley Grade School
• Crystal Lake High School
• Marengo High School
• McHenry High School
• Richmond-Burton High School
• Alden-Hebron Unit District
• Barrington Unit District
• Belvidere Unit District
• Carpentersville Unit District
• Huntley Unit District
• Johnsburg Unit District
• Wauconda Unit District
• Woodstock Unit District

The Cary Grade School Board will meet at the Junior High School on Crystal Lake Road tonight to discuss studying the advantiages and disadvantages of merging with the Fox River Grove School District.

That’s what seems to be behind this innocuous looking agenda item on the Cary District 26′s School Board Agenda tonight:

10. Topics for Discussion

10.2 Consolidation Feasibility Study

We have it on our agenda as “to discuss discussing about merging of districts,” Fox River Grove Districts 3 Superintendent Tim Mahaffy told me today.

Specifically, the Agenda says, “Consider Invitation for Involvement in an Exploration of Merging with D26.”

Interesting how Fox River Grove’s Board Agenda reveals more than does that of Cary.

Fox River Grove’s School Board is meeting tonight, too.

Most children from both elementary school districts attend Cary-Grove High School.

Could there be a second attempt to created a Unit School District in the area’s future?

There are three types of school districts in Illinois--Unit Districts, which educate K-12, Grade School Districts (K-8), and High School Districts (9-12).

School districts take most of our property tax dollars.

It is fair to compare unit districts to unit districts.

These are how all schools were originally.

During the run-up to the 1870 Constitutional Convention, there was tremendous borrowing by local and state governments. It was the era of canals, but the railroads came quickly and made them unprofitable.

And that left lots of debt.

There were two reactions embodied in the 1870 State Constitution:

• state government was prohibited from selling bonds without passage of a statewide referendum
• local governments were prohibiting from borrowing more than 5% of their assessed valuation

Eventually, local tax districts like schools decided that 5% limit was too strict.

They asked the General Assembly to allow them to create more tax districts so they could borrow more.

By splitting unit districts into dual districts–grade and high school districts–an area could borrow twice as much money.

You can see what parts of McHenry County took advantage of that end run around the 1870 Constitution.

If you add a grade school rate to its high school rate, you will generally see a higher total tax rate than for surrounding unit school districts.

Because a high school teacher, State Rep. Gene Hoffman (R-DuPage County) pretty much wrote the 1973 Resource Equalizer State Aid to Education legislation, high schools ended up with a larger share of the financial assistance from state government than elementary schools.

That pretty much explains why high school teachers are paid more than grade school teachers…unless the elementary school teachers are in unit districts. In the latter case, the pay is equalized across grades.

If you look at the changes in the tax rates above and realize that probably all school districts are under their statutory tax rate limit, the reason comes to light.

Tax districts are limited by the Property Tax Cap (PRELL, as the professional tax folks call it) in what they can take from taxpayers.

They can get what they got last year, plus any increase in the Consumer Price Index, plus assessed valuation resulting from new growth or the end of a Tax Increment Financing district.

Virtually all tax districts levy to the max, arguing that, if they don’t they will “lose” that money forever.

By their very use of that rhetoric, one can see that they are not on the taxpayers’ side.

If they retained a taxpayers’ viewpoint, the “lost” tax dollars would be described as money the taxpayers would “save.”

So, most follow the taxeaters’ primal urge and tax to the max.

You will note that of the high school district that increased its rate the least was Crystal Lake’s.  Thanks might be offered to the Grafton-Algonquin-Nunda-Dorr Community Advocates. (GAND for short).  They pushed for not taking the max.

And the District 155 School Board actually listened and followed GAND’s advice.

The district whose rate increased the most was Huntley School District 158.  That’s because its board took as much as was possible.

Grafton Township, where most of the district’s assessed valuation is located, saw property values plunge more than anywhere else in McHenry County.  The housing bubble of the 1990′s and beyond just burst.

This is an interactive map in the original. (See link below.) Just click on an area and you will see how property values fared over the last year.

According to a Chicago Tribune analysis, prices decreased 14% in just the last year.  Note that the Barrington area had a similar drop in home values and its tax rate jumped almost as much as Huntley’s

Remembering the reciprocal formula, when assessed valuation goes down, tax rates must go up to raise the same amount of money.

Districts used to brag that their rates were going down.  What they didn’t tell you was that was not because of any local decision.  It was mandated by the 1992 Property Tax Cap legislation.

You will see no press releases from school districts or municipalities this year, just as you didn’t last year.  As was reported yesterday, the tax rates for all cities and villages in McHenry County, but Richmond, went up.

As far as grade school rates go, Crystal Lake’s increased the most–13.9%.

Richmond-Burton High School District 157 won the “prize” for increasing its tax rate more than any other high school district.

McHenry County Blog has surveyed school districts with major presences in McHenry County and discovered that union employees paid $3.8 million in dues during calendar year 2010.

The total amount was $3,825,572.

Contracts are typically for more than one year and most expenses would in contract negotiation year.

Most are from dues paid by teachers, but there are also office worker and school bus drivers.

Most go to the Illinois Education Association-National Education Association.

Part of the collective bargaining proposal made by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is to end mandatory union membership.

Illinois, of course, has laws that force all employees of a bargaining unit to pay dues.

The legislation would require that teacher union officials collect their own dues, rather than having as a payroll deduction, as is the case in all of the districts below.

To no one’s surprise, employees of the largest district examined, Carpentersville Unit District 300, paid the most dues.  The total was over $1.1 million.

• Barrington Unit District 220 – $554,555
• Alden-Hebron Unit District 19 – $22,427
• Cary Grade School District 26 – $52,254
• Crystal Lake Grade School District 47 – 315,342
• Crystal Lake High School District 155 – $287,202
• Carpentersville Unit District 300 – $1,122,392
• Fox River Grove Grade School District 3 – $23,599
• Harvard Unit School District 50 – $96,745
• Huntley Unit School District 158 – $356,047
• Johnsburg Unit District 12 – $106,055
• Marengo-Union Grade School District 165 – $48,778
• Marengo High School District 154 – $30,005
• McHenry Grade School District 15 – $207,111
• McHenry High School District 156 – $109,331
• Prairie Grove Grade School District 46 – $10,863
• Richmond-Burton (Nippersink) Grade School District 2 – $59,429
• Richmond-Burton High School District 157 – $37,592
• Riley Grade School District 18 – $9,161
• Wonder Lake (Harrison) School District 36 – $13,249
• Woodstock Unit School District 200 – $372,595

Teachers walk picket line outside Huntley High School in 2008.

Governor Pat Quinn thinks that consolidating schools will save big money because fewer administrators would be required.

The average Crystal Lake High School District 155 teacher salary is $91,573.

Reading the Daily Herald article, I notice that no mention is made of equalizing up elementary school teacher salaries to the level paid by the overlying high school districts.

$68,489 is the average teacher salary in the Cary Grade School District, the one is such financial trouble recently.

All Quinn mentions is saving $100 million in administrative costs. That’s well under one-half of one percentage of what’s spent on schools in Illinois.

In Fox River Grove the average grade school teacher makes $60,507.

Pretty much peanuts, in other words.

In the Prairie Grove Elementary School District underlying Crystal Lake High School District the average salary is $59,840.

The Northwest Herald has bought into the argument, also incorrectly assume that consolidating hundreds of school districts in Illinois will save big money.

The largest of the District 155 feeder schools, Crystal Lake District 47, pays its teachers $57,788 on the average, according to the 2010 School Report Card.

“… there’s no good reason why towns such as Cary, Crystal Lake and McHenry should have separate elementary and high school districts.”

That’s what the Northwest Herald wrote Thursday.  (Look quickly.  Soon you will have to pay to see it.)

Might I suggest that a salary comparison be made?

Look what took me less than ten minutes to find.

High school salaries in District 155 are higher than those in Crystal Lake Grade School District 47, Cary Grade School District 26 and Prairie Grade School District 46.

Let me list them:

• Crystal Lake District 155 – $91,573 (412 teachers)
• Cary District 26 – $68,489 (198 teachers)
• Fox River Grove 3 – $60,507 (41 teachers)
• Prairie Grove District 46 – $59,840 (68 teachers)
• Crystal Lake District 47 – $57,788 (564 teachers)

The weighted average of grade school teachers in the three districts is $60,505.

The difference between the average weighted elementary school salary and the District 155 High School teacher’s average salary of $91,573 is $31,066.

Let’s do some multiplication.

First, let’s estimate. You know, what grade school students are taught to do.

What’s $31,000 times 900?

Hey, that’s over $25 million.

The exact figure is $27,058,486 my calculator says and it didn’t take tens of thousands of dollars paid to some Northern Illinois professors to figure that out.

So, let’s be rational and assume no teacher would be willing to take a pay cut and all grade school teachers would want to be put on the same salary schedule now enjoyed by area high school teachers.

Looking at these figures, it is hard to believe they would not expect an average raise of $31,000 if consolidation were to occur.

Now, I’ll admit that I have not made detailed comparisons to take into account the longevity bonus that high and grade school teachers get.

Maybe after making such adjustments the raise for unifying the pay schedules wouldn’t average over $31,000 a grade school teacher.

Pick your number and multiply it by 871.

Then, compare that mid-$20-some million number with the $100 million statewide savings that Quinn projects in savings from unneeded administrators.

Anyone think the savings by getting rid of redundant administrators within the Crystal Lake-Cary-Fox River Grove-Prairie Grove area would approach $25 million?

So why is the Governor proposing something that is going to cost every part of the state with both high and grade school districts big money?

Would I be being too cynical to suggest that Quinn may be trying to reward Illinois Education Association members who supported his re-election?

Would anyone think Illinois union leaders would let teachers in the same unified district be on two different pay scales?

The IEA Uniserve Directors would be knocking at school administrators’ doors the day after a merger.  Maybe before.

The entrance to Disney World's Fantasy Land looks so enticing, but what's beyond looks like a carnvial to me.

Proof is how teacher unions won’t allow a consolidated school district to use even two different pay scales.

The elementary physical education teacher that teaches kindergarten P.E. classes is on the same pay scale as the high school math and science teachers.

Only in editorial and Quinn Fantasy Land unions would be helping to save money.

The result would be teachers hearing the sound of “Ca Ching!”

Years later you would likely read editors bemoaning how this couldn’t have been foreseen.

But that’s what collective bargaining will bring if all school districts are shoved into the unit district mold.

It will be the result of collective bargaining. You know, what the fight in Madison, Wisconsin, is all about.

The filing has just ended, but lots of grade school board candidates in McHenry County are assured of election.

Here at Election Central, McHenry County Blog declares the fifteen candidates listed below elected.

In Fox River Grove Grade School District 3, there are four openings and four candidates, so there is no contest.

4-year Term (three to be elected)

• Jertry Blohm
• Thomas Mollet
• Devin Bright

2-year (one to be elected)

• Stephen Pickering

McHenry Grade School District 15 is another district where there is no contest.  Get enough signatures to place yourself on the ballot and you won.

2-Year-Term (one to be elected)

• John O’Neill (incumbent)

4-Year-Term (three to be elected)

• Mike Hettermann
• Paul Santopadre
• Patrick Miller (incumbent)

In Cary Grade School District 26, the candidate for the two-year term is assured of election:

• Floyd Myers (one to be elected)

There are four seats that will be on the ballot in Wonder Lake (Harrison) Grade School District 36 and four candidates.  All will obviously win.

Two-year term (one to be elected)

• George Wood

Four-year term (three to be elected)

• Linda Amettis
• Karen Parks
• Laurie Alsot

Prairie Grove Grade School District 46 has but two candidates for three vacancies. Democratic Party candidate for County Board, Lori McConville is one of them.  She will win pubic office, as will the other candidate who filled.

• Khushali Shah
• Lori McConville

The deadline for filing a write-in candidacy with the McHenry County Clerk is Thursday, February 3, 2011.  Get more votes than any other write-in candidate and you’re elected.