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Dist. 59 Board Backtracks On BondsFree Access

Intent To Issue Up To $20 Million In District Debt Abandoned; Residents Express Lack Of Trust In District Board, Administration

Elk Grove Township School Dist. 59 board members voted Thursday to abandon their intent to issue up to $20 million in bonds, or new debt for the district.

Elk Grove Township Community Consolidated School Dist. 59 administration building.

The split 4-to-3 vote was taken one day before the deadline to remove from the March 20 primary election ballot a citizens-led referendum question on the bond issue. All seven school board members agreed the district was not facing the same bleak financial outlook they saw last summer when board members began the process to issue the working cash bonds.

Board members voting against abandoning the bond issue were Tim Burns, Mardell Schumacher and board President Barbara Somogyi.

Burns said he believed the issue was being dropped because other board members knew the March 20 referendum would result in failure and did not want to be embarrassed by an overwhelming rejection. Others voting against said those who worked hard to circulate referendum petitions deserved to have the question appear on election ballots.

Board member Sharon Roberts said by leaving the issue on the March 20 ballot, the school board would be telling voters it would be moving forward with selling bonds, when that was no longer the case.

Attorneys for the district said the process to begin issuing bonds could begin again after the March 20 election.

During Thursday night’s special board meeting discussion, when it appeared there was broad agreement that no bonds would be issued, Burns, the most vocal critic of the bond issue from the start, attempted to have other board members pledge they would not reintroduce a bond issue proposal. He first asked for a 180-day pledge, then for a 365-day pledge.

Other board members were skeptical, asking what might happen if a district facility were struck by a tornado or faced some other unexpected catastrophic event.

Supt. Art Fessler said he felt comfortable, saying barring a major disaster, he would not ask the board to go to referendum for at least one year.

Board member Janice Krinsky said she had no intention of asking for a bond issuance again in the foreseeable future, but that she did not know what issues might come up within a year. She felt Burns was trying to bully other board members into making the commitment.

Although the emergency meeting was quickly scheduled after Krinsky raised the idea of abandoning the bonds at Monday’s regular school board meeting, an estimated 40 residents were in attendance. Regular school board meeting attendance has averaged about 50 residents since summer.

Residents, during public comments at Thursday’s meeting expressed distrust for district administrators and school board members.

Issues leading to the vote to start the bond process last summer included planning for and the start of construction on a new administration building in Elk Grove Village. When the building was first proposed, officials said the district had more than $100 million in reserves, would be able to sell the existing property in Arlington Heights to offset the cost of the new building, and would not need to issue bonds to pay for its construction.

Since then, projected costs for the building more than doubled to as much as $17.1 million, before a proposed district kitchen was removed from plans. Current cost estimates stand at more than $16.2 million.

Fessler said as projected building costs rose, there were fears state aid and federal grant dollars might not be realized. He said at the time, having the option to issue bonds would have allowed the district to weather that financial storm.

Fessler has since said the district has identified $5.2 million in possible savings by the end of the 2017-2018 school year, and that he is seeking to cut an additional $5 million next year.

He has not yet detailed what those cost cutting measures would be. Specific cost cutting measures would be discussed at a school board workshop meeting in late February, and potentially voted on by school board members in March, according to Fessler.

The majority of comments from the public expressed deep mistrust in administrators and board members, although at least one spoke in support of board members.

Leo Cox of Elk Grove Village said the administration building is a “canary in the coal mine alerting everyone that the district expenses were outstripping our income.” He urged Fessler to come up with a comprehensive financial plan for the district. “If you don’t have a plan and are simply waiting until your constituents put down their torches and pitchforks, you are in for a long wait.”

Others cited a lack of transparency as troubling. Several residents pointed to emails, uncovered by the Journal & Topics with the help of the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Bureau, pointing to a coordinated effort by a majority of school board members — with the exception of Burns and Schumacher — to challenge referendum petition signatures and find someone to file that challenge with the Cook County Electoral Board.

Residents also pointed to an ongoing investigation by the Public Access Bureau into possible violations of the Illinois Open Meetings Act stemming from those emails. Attorneys for the district maintain the Open Meetings Act was not violated.

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