About two dozen authorities companies within the Chicago suburbs will ask voters for more cash or different modifications within the Nov. 5 election.
The referendums cowl a variety of points, from $420 million at school enhancements in Naperville and Aurora as to if yard chickens must be allowed in Thornton.
Many of the college referendums contain repairs and upgrades to older buildings. Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 has three faculties which are almost 100 years outdated and others from the Nineteen Fifties and Nineties.
They want issues like new roofs, heating and air-con, electrical wiring, plumbing and school rooms. School officers are asking voters for $89 million for work.
Superintendent Ben Collins mentioned faculties lack fundamental security and performance necessities.
“We have classroom doorways which are unsafe and are falling aside,” Collins mentioned, “in addition to mechanical methods like HVAC and plumbing which are outdated and value taxpayers cash as a result of they frequently break down or are inefficient.”
A report from the Cook County Treasurer’s Office this 12 months discovered that lower than a 3rd of registered voters vote on referendums, which means a comparatively small quantity get to resolve these points.
Referendums vary from large building tasks to very particular points, similar to Glencoe looking for residence rule, Oak Park proposing ranked-choice voting and Skokie calling for time period limits.
Several municipalities in DuPage County and Moraine County in Lake County are looking for psychological well being funding, and University Park is proposing to type a parks district.
Niles seeks to type trustee districts and Northfield votes on a roundabout foundation. Statewide, voters will face a Non-binding referendum on whether or not Illinois ought to impose a 3% tax on revenue over $1 million, for use for property tax reduction, in addition to election interference measures, and whether or not insurance coverage must be required to pay for therapy of limitless fertility.
And within the Naperville and Aurora space, voters will probably be requested for the biggest financial pledge of all: $420 million for Indian Prairie School District 204.
1 From 8
The district plans to concern new bonds to interchange maturing loans, so the cash might be raised with out elevating taxes above present ranges. All 33 faculties and 25,000 college students within the district ought to profit.
School shootings have helped spur efforts to fortify buildings. The district’s prime enterprise officer, Matt Shipley, mentioned the district spends about $2,000 much less per pupil than the state common however wants an injection of capital to deal with infrastructure.
“It’s a special safety setting than after they have been constructed 25 to 40 years in the past,” Shipley mentioned. “We’re not making an attempt to construct new buildings, it is about sustaining the present constructions.”
School districts are prohibited from spending cash to help passage of a referendum, though they sometimes run info campaigns touting the advantages of such proposals. In some circumstances, dad or mum teams will take up the trigger with web sites like Yesd204.org.
Conservative newspaper Wirepoints reported that many referendum proposals move partly as a result of lecturers, architects and engineering unions donate to their campaigns.
In District 204, the lecturers union donated $30,000 to the poll initiative, whereas Organic Life of Chicago, which says it’s Illinois’ largest meals service supplier, donated $10,000.
On the proposed statewide millionaire’s tax, championed by former Gov. Pat Quinn, the state structure requires a flat revenue tax, so it will in all probability have to be modified. In 2020, voters rejected a proposal for a progressive revenue tax.
Supporters say this enhance would generate about $4.5 billion yearly particularly for property tax reduction. Property house owners within the southern suburbs and elsewhere have taken a beating this 12 months with the median 20% tax increasesin some circumstances greater than doubling.
In Northfield, a long-proposed plan to construct a roundabout alongside Happ Road that might eradicate about 20 parking areas downtown has sparked opposition from some residents and enterprise house owners, who signed a petition and launched a protest. website against itarguing that the village wants extra group enter.
Most referendums in Illinois are voted on by native governing our bodies. But in Oak Park, supporters gathered sufficient signatures to carry a binding referendum on the poll requiring ranked-choice voting, after the village board refused to take action.
Ranked choice it permits voters to rank every candidate so as of desire, which supporters say is a fairer technique to elect officers. If authorised in Oak Park, the system would apply to elections for village president and trustees.
In Illinois, solely Evanston has authorised such a system, which will probably be carried out subsequent 12 months.
Glencoe voters will resolve whether or not to develop into a home-governed group. Cities with a inhabitants of over 25,000 are mechanically autonomous by legislation. But smaller cities, like Glencoe, want voter approval. The designation permits municipalities to gather a gross sales tax.
In the meantime. The Glencoe Park District is asking voters for about $15 million in property taxes for capital enhancements.
Other faculties with referendums, usually involving hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, embrace the next: Mount Prospect School District 57, Community Unit School District 201 in Westmont, Barrington Community Unit School District 220, Salt Creek School District 48 within the Villa Park/Oak space Brook, Bloomingdale School District 13, Cary School District 26 and Golf School District 67, situated in Morton Grove.
The Elmhurst, Mount Prospect, Huntley and La Grange park districts are additionally trying to borrow cash, as is the Lemont Fire Protection District.
The DuPage, Kane and Lake Forest Preserve districts are going to referendums, as are the McHenry County Conservation District and the Roselle Library District, which search to construct a brand new library in a land swap with the village.
R. Christian Smith of the Aurora Beacon-News and freelance journalist Bob Skolnick contributed.
Originally printed:
