What’s That New Ad About? Running for School Board, Where Most Property Taxes Are Spent

It’s got kids in a school room raising their hands.

This new ad seeks to recruit people to run for school board. Click F5 several times if you can’t see it.

If the

Are Your Property Taxes TOO High?

Run for School Board

come-on intrigues enough to click on the image, you will be taken to the For Our Children’s Future web site.

The masthead for the web site “For Our Children’s Future.”

Encouraging people to run for school board is totally in sync with what McHenry County Blog is all about:

‘This is a journal of news and opinion designed to bring to light matters of public interest and to encourage public participation in the governmental process.”

And it a fact that most of our property taxes go to finance elementary, high school and unit districts.

Here’s where the property tax dollars paid this year by Crystal Lake residents living in Algonquin Township (south of Crystal Lake Avenue) went. The percentage going to schools of those living outside municipalities is more, of course.  Chart compiled by the Crystal Lake Park District.

It is also a fact that no organized group has a vested interest in the taxpayers’ side of the school budgeting process–the most significant part of which is teacher contract negotiations.

On the other hand, local teachers’ unions have a real vested interest.

If their union-backed (either officially or unofficially endorsed) candidates can win control of a school board, they will end up with more money.

One only has to look at the Cary School Board the years after the local Illinois Education Association affiliate endorsed candidates took control.

The subsequent board spent the District 26 into the a red ink position that the State Office of Education had to intervene and a special tax hike was passed as a bail-out mechanism.

The candidate recruitment web site has the following information:

  • To run for school board you only need 50 signatures of registered voters, but we would recommend getting at least double to withstand any challenges.
  • The filing deadline is Dec 17, 2012 – Dec 24, 2012 at the district office of the school district
  • The election will be held April 9, 2013

The web site offers two reason people should run for school board:

  1. Education is the key to unlocking the future for our children. We need good people who interested in quality education for all children and protecting their future by making your school district fiscally sustainable.
  2. Illinois has some of the highest property taxes in the country. In some areas property taxes are higher than the actual mortgage principal. This is fiscally unsustainable and needs to be brought under control.

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