Daily Archives: October 23, 2009

Peoria Journal Star

Journal Star subscription rates going up… again

24 Comments

It was only last August that the Journal Star raised subscription rates to $19.50 per month. Shortly after that, the paper started getting thinner. Sections that used to have six pages only had four, for example. Then in January 2009, they gave pink slips to five reporters.

So, of course, the Journal Star is raising subscription rates again. In a letter dated October 20, Circulation Manager Bruce Nielsen said, “Effective November 23, 2009, your new rate will be $20.58 per month. That is an increase of less than four cents per day.”

Fewer reporters. Thinner papers. Higher subscription rates. Meanwhile, non-subscribers get the same news at no cost via the pjstar.com website. I guess I really am a sucker (as are all other subscribers) for continuing to pay them for content they’re giving away free to everyone else.

Peoria Public Schools, Public Building Commission

PBC to D150: Get your act together and spend this money!

300 Comments

The Public Building Commission is worried. They still have $30 million more in bonding capacity, and they might not get to spend it if District 150 doesn’t get its act together soon.

You may recall that the Public Building Commission (PBC) was established in 1955, but school districts used it so much in the 1980s that there was significant voter backlash, which led to the state legislature making school districts ineligible to get funding through the PBC after 1993. Well, District 150 didn’t let that stop them. In 2006, thanks to then Senator Shadid and Representative Schock, District 150 got access to the PBC once again, but only until July 1, 2011. According to a Journal Star article from earlier in the year, “any project needing funding must be significantly completed by July 2011.” And that means there’s not much time left.

Spending PBC money is a win-win for District 150 and the PBC, but not for voters and taxpayers. If municipal organizations stop borrowing from the PBC, it will cease to exist, so the PBC has to keep marketing itself to other governmental bodies. Executive secretary for the PBC James Thornton has been doing just that. For months now, he’s been trying to cajole District 150 to find a way to max out the PBC’s bonding capacity. Of course, the benefit to District 150 is they get to raise taxes for capital projects without having to get voter approval.

District 150 has a new Harrison School and a new Glen Oak School under construction, and they have done remodeling and enlargement at Richwoods, Northmoor, Lindbergh, and Kellar. After all that, they thought they had used up all their PBC bonding capacity, but surprise! Due to recent annexation, the total Equalized Assessed Value of property in Peoria went up. Since the PBC’s bonding authority is set as a percentage of EAV, its bonding capacity also increased. So now the PBC and District 150 are just looking for a project — any project — that will allow them to spend this extra money.

To hear some board members talk about it, they view it as some sort of moral imperative that they use every last dollar of bonding capacity (also known as debt) — that they take full advantage of this “opportunity” to access the PBC before the five-year window closes. Thus, they are doing back bends to try and please the PBC. That’s one of the biggest reasons why they closed Woodruff High School.

That’s no way to make educational decisions. And it’s not in the best interests of taxpayers, either.