Barrington Taxpayer Advises School “Inflationary Mindset” Not “Sustainable”

I found this testimony from Barrington’s Thomas Banfield in an article by Nancy Thorner on Illinois Review.

With budget hearings for all school districts and junior colleges coming up, I thought it might embolden some citizens to present a similar “taxpayers’ side of the story.”

220 District School Board Public Hearing
Presentation By
The Garlands of Barrington
September 17, 2013

My name is Thomas Banfield. I am a resident of the Garlands Retirement Community and I am the Chairman of the Garlands Members Advisory Committee.

A taxpayer as seen by the Tax Foundation.

A taxpayer as seen by the Tax Foundation.

I would like to preface my comments by stating that we at The Garlands understand the benefits of the fine Barrington school system. We are proud of it.

As taxpayers we pay for the cost – which is fine—as long as we think that the expenses are cost efficient and that the tax is fairly distributed.

When we received our real estate tax bill this year we saw that it was about 15% higher than last year. In looking into the reasons, we found that it was because the Lake Co. Tax Rate went up 15.3 %. So we examined the tax bill to see how much of the Lake Co. increase was attributed to each of the taxing bodies.

We found that the tax rate for the Barrington 220 School District went up 17.2 %.

This caused us great concern, so we met with the Superintendent of Schools and the President of the Board of Education. They were very helpful in explaining the multiple elements making up the tax calculations and how the Board operates in preparing the budgets.

We found that School Districts are allowed to increase the Tax Levy each year by the amount of the CPI-U and new growth. This then allows the Board to increase costs by similar amounts each year.

The planned increases in total expenditures as detailed in the 220 District 2012-2013 Final Budget as of 4/13/2013 are:

  • FY 2012 $2.0 million, up 1.6%
  • FY 2013 $4.7 million, up 3.7%
  • FY 2014 $5.5 million, up 4.2%
  • FY 2015 $5.8 million, up 4.2%
  • FY 2016 $6.7 million, up 4.7%.

This brings me to the main thrust of our comments.

Being able to increase costs each year creates what we call a “mindset” that it is OK to increase costs each year by 1, 2 or 3 %.

This is an inflationary mindset that, in view of the troubling overall forecasts of assessment evaluations and government funding, is not a sustainable mindset.

The total assessed valuation in Lake County decreased last year by as much as 10% in some areas.

One out of seven households in the area suffered loss of employment or under-employment in recent years. School District 220 did not reflect any recognition of these two facts.

According to the US Government, wages and salaries increased by 1.7% last year.

Thus the income of our citizens is not keeping pace with inflation and is not able to afford the rate of increase in taxes of School District 220.

We believe that instead of increasing costs each year by 1, 2 or 3 %, the School Board should be looking to decrease costs each year by 1, 2 or 3 %. How can the Board bring this about?

Changing the mindset:

  1. When someone wants to adopt a new and necessary program costing $1,000, $10,000 or $50,000, they need to eliminate an existing program(s) that is no longer vital to the school that costs $1,000, $10,000 or $50,000.
  2. When the Board first meets to work on next year’s budget, ask each Board member to come up with 5 ways to cut costs.
  3. Ask the Superintendent to come up with 5 ways to cut costs.
  4. Ask the PTO to come up with 5 ways to cut costs.
  5. Ask the teachers’ union to come up with 5 ways to cut costs.
  6. Ask the teachers to come up with 5 ways to cut costs.
  7. Ask the Student Advisory Council to come up with 5 ways to cut costs.
  8. Put out a suggestion box asking the students to come up with ways to cut costs.

If carried out, these suggestions have the further benefit of stimulating all the named parties to become more cost-conscious than before.

In summary, we are concerned that the current mindset of the School Board is inflationary and unsustainable. While we have presented ways in which the private sector would try to cut costs, we ask the School Board at least to hold expenditure increases below the cost-of-living.

This concludes my comments. Thank you for your consideration.


Comments

Barrington Taxpayer Advises School “Inflationary Mindset” Not “Sustainable” — 12 Comments

  1. Wow, extremely well written & I completely agree to it all.

    Maybe it can be passed along to D155?

  2. Here, here! Way to go, Mr. Banfield! Well articulated. Rational and based on facts. That is akin to saying politicians will run from your lucid argument.

    Assessors…..take note.

    Those running for County Treasurer….take note.

    Those in the State Legislature….take note.

    School Administrators and Superintendents…..take note.

    Police, Fire, and Government Employees, retirees, and Union leaders….take note.

    There is a growing visceral anger among taxpayers that YOU ALL are the problem.

    That anger is accurately placed.

    You have thus far escaped the wrath of the taxpayer for the politicians and administrators have led the way in reiterating ad nauseum that it is the “Property Tax Formula” that is to blame.

    “No-one” in Government or those with administrative power are to blame.

    This purposeful and fraudulent attempt BY ALL OF YOU LISTED ABOVE has thus far been successful been confusing the taxpayer to allow you to tyrannically raise our taxes.

    But, the overworked taxpayer is starting to catch on….

    AND WE’VE DETERMINED YOU ARE ALL AT FAULT.

    You better get it corrected quickly, or your power grab days will be gone for good along with your bloated golden retirement packages.

    FIX THE PROBLEM.
    Correct the problem and DO IT NOW; Or you will soon have a serious problem on your hand. If you don’t bother, you can consider yourselves all TYRANTS.

  3. Pretty much sums up Illinois doesn’t it folks?

    Taxpayers go, hat in hand, begging for relief. When it should be the other way around.

  4. Wait a minute — you choose to live in a community of multi-million dollar homes and an indulgent lifestyle but you want those same big spenders to cut costs?

    I suggest you move to an area where kids don’t get BMWs or Range Rovers for their 16th birthdays.

  5. Yea Rod, it’s not their money it’s ours, right?

    They didn’t work for their success, it’s the school district that gave them their homes and lifestyle.

    Or at least that’s what you want us to believe, right?

    It’s the taxing authorities that create jobs and millionaires, so they should just shut up and pay.

    And why? Simply because they can.

    Obama and his mouthpiece for modern collectivist democracy, Paul Krugman, would be happy to read your on-board.

  6. Rod, your solution to the financial problem is to criticize the successful people.

    You make the same argument the Democrats do: demonize the productive people and blame them for the failure of government and others’ hardship.

    Your worldview has been show repeatitively to be a FAILURE.

    There are no exeptions in history to this social reality.

    Your notion dooms a society to poverty – ALL classes fail if we follow your understanding of how basic economics work.

  7. You lot are a trip!!!

    All so single-minded in your “solution” that only those you deem as “hard workers” should be financially successful.

    Unlike you and your nut job ilk, most of America did not hit the “gene pool lottery”.

    Yet, you couldn’t connect two dots with that logic if someone gave you instructions.

    I toss around spare change like they were sewer covers.

    I have yet to appeal one property tax statement, because having mine reduced means everyone equally shares my “discount”.

    You have no idea how hard anyone works to try to get ahead yet only get further behind.

    And schools are to blame?

    That’s your magic bullet solution?

    Some patriot.

    I don’t hear you blaming the politicians who get their job for a few short years, get bounced in the next election, and then collect lifetime benefits from the American public.

    Teachers stay employed for 30-40 years, while the politicos vote themselves pay increases and benefit increases for enjoying junket after junket.

    Do unions contribute to the problems: yup.

    Are they alone: heck no.

    But you won’t say anything about the politicos, because that goes against The Playbook.

    “Pay no attention to the Republicans behind the curtain”, right?

    I don’t care which party label is on the forehead — they all are part of this mess.

    These are complex problem requiring complex answers to decades of bureaucratic bumbling; Superman’s not coming to save the day.

    It’s no accident that the party mascots are asses and elephants!!

    And @DJ — you’ll be a more interesting read when you learn the difference between “your” and you’re”.

  8. Sorry for the typo Rod. I blame it on my parents who briefly exposed me to those public school daycare centers.

    The experience forever stunted my ability to distinguish between contractions and a possessive adj.

    I’ll do better on the next assignment professor.

    But it’s an Illinois blog, so I do think I should have been graded on a curve.

  9. Rod,

    You are ranting, not making a reasonable argument.

    You called me “single minded”, a “nut job”, and you criticize others’ grammar.

    You’re obviously just a pissed off liberal…which is actually a redundant statement, so forgive me.

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