Tax referendum survey

[markberwyn]

Berwyn's turnout rate is around 60-70 percent in presidential election years. Presumably it's lower in other years.

[Ted]

How many residents do not vote?

  In non-municipal election years, the turnout is around 1300 to 1500.  In municipal election years with a contested mayoral race and aldermanic races, it is in the range of 7,000 to 10,000.

  This year will be like 2013 - a municipal race which is not contested.  In 2013, the turnout was 1800.

  But, I expect the turnout to be higher if a referendum is on the ballot. In 2007, D201 put a referendum on the February ballot and there was nothing else on the ballot in Berwyn that election.  Turnout was 2900.  In the school board election in April of 2007, the turnout was 2200. 

So expect people to come out to vote in April who normally do not vote in school board elections if there is a referendum on the ballot.

[MRS. NORTHSIDER]

If South Berwyn District 100 does not get the hispanic parents of children in the district to vote, I do believe the referendum will fail.

[markberwyn]

Do non-hispanic Berwynites dislike the schools? Dislike their tax dollars being spent on them? Dislike hispanics?

[berwyn senator]

Good Questions! Why are there meetings in other languages? I thought English was our language?

[markberwyn]

America does not have an official language.

[berwyn senator]

Ok! Then why not in Polish,Czech,Italian,etc? I know because of the population. Still is English the most spoken in the U.S.?

[markberwyn]

What's your point?

[chandasz]

Since a large proportion of Berwyn speaks Spanish, as I am sure you know, the schools are trying to be inclusive to everyone.

If we had 70% polish-speaking population- communication would be in Polish as well.

Right?

[markberwyn]

Right.

[Ted]

Here is the amount of money that District 100 has lost in the last 5 years due to cutbacks in state funding and due to the change in the state aid formula.

  The numbers come from D100 board president Robert Pauly.  The revenue for D100 the last 5 years has been around $40 million, so it represents essentially a 4% to 5% cut in revenue over the last 5 years:

2012 $799,703
2013 $1,810,167
2014 $2,015,637
2015 $2,339,533 
2016 $1,431,030
Total $8,396,070.

[berwyn senator]

Does money guarantee a good education? How much money can thrown into the fire without realizing it does no good. When a company is in trouble they look at every way to cut the fat, why not the schools? I may have said this before, bungalows now house extra families resulting in many more children.Single family homes paying taxes, with three families,garbage bills for single family homes with three families. This all stresses the system so the individual homeowner pays.

[markberwyn]

Tell me more about the "fat" in the schools. Why is it important for schools to behave like for-profit businesses? What resources, to your mind, are extraneous when it comes to educating children, and how have Berwyn schools benefitted from the ones that are already cut?

[Ted]

Does money guarantee a good education? How much money can thrown into the fire without realizing it does no good. When a company is in trouble they look at every way to cut the fat, why not the schools? I may have said this before, bungalows now house extra families resulting in many more children.Single family homes paying taxes, with three families,garbage bills for single family homes with three families. This all stresses the system so the individual homeowner pays.

The school board has said they have cut as much as possible.  As I told you before, the district took out a working cash bond last October because they wouldn't have had enough money to pay the bills in January.  A working cash bond is a last resort measure - sort of like a pay day loan.

  Also, as I said in another post, you are going to pay for it one way or another - either via higher debt (which will raise your taxes) or via the tax rate.  One way or another, your taxes are going to go up.  Pick your poison.

[berwyn senator]

Ok! I agree, must have forgot your post!

[berwyn senator]

I think I and many others feel where the expense is coming from.

[MRS. NORTHSIDER]

i just looked up my tax reassessment online at the Cook County Assessor office.  They will mail them out on Monday.  It's a good thing that the referendum was on the ballot this year.  With one of the highest tax rates in Cook County and from what I can see is an at least 20 to 30% increase in assessments in my area most taxpayers will be in for a rude awakening when the tax bills are mailed for the second half next year. I'm also pretty sure that the increase is citywide. 

[markberwyn]

Are you saying that Berwyn has one of the highest property tax rates in Cook County? What I'm seeing is that Berwyn's is lower than at least a dozen Cook County municipalities, including Forest View, Bridgeview, and Cicero.

[Ted]

i just looked up my tax reassessment online at the Cook County Assessor office.  They will mail them out on Monday.  It's a good thing that the referendum was on the ballot this year.  With one of the highest tax rates in Cook County and from what I can see is an at least 20 to 30% increase in assessments in my area most taxpayers will be in for a rude awakening when the tax bills are mailed for the second half next year. I'm also pretty sure that the increase is citywide.

Not quite true.  Tax levies are a zero sum game.  When assessments go up, the tax rate goes down in inverse proportion.   For example, if all the residencies in D100 have an equalized assessed value of $2 billion dollars and a tax rate of $3 per $100 of assessed value and the triennial assessment increases the total EAV to $3 billion dollars, then the tax rate is decreased to $2 per $100 of assessed value.

  Taxing bodies (except for home rule communities) are still limited to increases determined by the cost of living index.

  You are not going to pay more in taxes into D100 because of the re-assessment, simply because D100 is too small of a geographic area to have large variations in the change of assessed values.

  Where the re-assessments does have a large impact is in larger geographic areas such as Cook County taxes or in the City of Chicago.  If the assessments in Lakeview increase dramatically and Englewood has assessments decrease dramatically, then the Lakeview taxes will increase beyond the cost of living because of the re-assessments.

But, Berwyn (and D100 in particular) is too small a geographic area to have that type of variation with the assessments.

  Another place it would matter would be taxes going to Cook County. But, for Berwyn taxes to be affected beyond the cost of living, Berwyn's assessed values would have to (percentage wise) be far above the increase in assessed values in most other townships in Cook County. And, looking at the Tribune figures on housing price increases, I think Berwyn's increases are around the same rate as increases in other townships.

  So, I do not think the re-assessments themselves will make taxes increase.  What would make taxes increase beyond the cost of living is if taxing bodies in Berwyn incur more debt (and issue new bonds) or if the city of Berwyn uses its home rule power to increase taxes beyond the cost of living.

  The biggest increases in taxes over the last 8 years were when, in 2009, the city of Berwyn increased its tax rate by 15% and when District 100 issued more and more bonds for technology purchases and to stave off running out of money and when the city of Berwyn in 2014 issued a $30 million dollar bond to replenish the fireman's pension fund.

  Those are the things that will dramatically increase your taxes - not the triennial reassessment (unless you think Berwyn's housing market is increasing faster than other suburban townships, which I do not think is the case).  As I said, tax levies are a zero sum game. 


 

[markberwyn]

Thank you for taking the time to clarify, Ted.