Daily Archives: February 4, 2009

Peoria Public Schools

Martha Ross’s suggestions for District 150

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Peoria Public Schools Board of Education member Martha Ross sent the following memo to Superintendent Ken Hinton and the other members of the board. I’m reprinting it here (with permission) for your information and comment:

Over the years I’ve served on the District 150 Board, when considering a vote, I have tried to make informed and sound decisions on all issues relating to the education and welfare of our children. What’s always foremost in my mind is that we hold the key to the future in how we treat, prepare and educate our students. I am of the belief that we pay now and use whatever resources we have to educate our students right or we pay later when we turn them out into the world unprepared to become productive citizens. I do realize that we cannot save all that come through our doors, but I feel that we are too quick to label, discard, discount, and or not give serious thought to what’s in their best interest.

My opinions are not intended to imply that any of you do not care and or are not interested in the children’s education, it is merely to voice my concerns, share my observations and offer my suggestions. That said, it is my opinion that some of the suggestions for “cutting” the budget bear a lot more thought to be able to avoid damaging the education and safety of our students.

The way I see it is that the following facts are apparent:

  1. We have far fewer students than we had 10 years ago
  2. We have far more staff than we had 10 years ago
  3. We need to balance our budget using sound strategies that can be duplicated
  4. We need to decrease this year’s proposed budget according to the financial information we have received
  5. We need to make those decreases without risking the quality of education and or the safety of the students
  6. We should value our staff, students, parents and community stakeholders

That said, I would like to offer some suggestions that have come from taking the time to think about this situation as well as listening to my community:

  1. Immediately affect a complete moratorium on all hiring, and freeze wages. It will soon be time for the March mid-year increases and this would protect the district from that additional outlay for salaries.

  2. Immediate and complete moratorium on all travel – except that paid for 100% by grants.

  3. Really close Blaine, place the property on the market and move those staff members back to the DLC. That makes more sense from a long-term cost savings standpoint.

  4. Keep all four high school sites but change the configuration to schools-within-schools

  5. Proposed vocational program could be located within Woodruff as a school-within-a-school.

  6. Current Fine Arts program could remain at Peoria High as a school-within-a-school.

  7. Since it’s been implied that Peoria High can accommodate a lot more students, leave the current 9th grade academy as a school-within-a-school.

  8. Create a 9th grade academy at Woodruff and Richwoods as a school-within-a-school with the separations needed to promote this concept.

  9. Create the “small” high school concept for the 10 through 12 in all four schools.

  10. Seek to qualify PHS and Woodruff as Title I schools to position them to receive more funded monies noted in President Obama’s economic stimulus proposal.

  11. Decrease transportation expenses by developing a plan to establish k-8 neighborhood schools so that most children can walk.

  12. List for sale or auction, real estate currently held by the district in inventory, including but not limited to the following parcels:
    • Riverfront (if any is left)
    • Prospect Road Property
    • Blaine Sumner Campus
    • Harrison – old campus and building site parcels
    • Irving campus (Future)
    • Kingman campus (Future)
    • Washington Gifted campus (to be explained later)

    This would also result in a cost savings in insurance premium expense and any custodial/maintenance and utilities expenses – if any – incurred by these sites. Additionally, the sale of these parcels would return them to the tax rolls and create a revenue-enhancing opportunity to the district for an increase in EAV.

  13. Look at savings related to the loss of the Medicaid Contract

  14. Close Washington Gifted, returning the kids (and their test scores) to their home schools. Offer a gifted component at each neighborhood school as Mr. Hinton mentioned will be included in the new Harrison model. Cost to run Washington Gifted is $1.325M. District no longer receives separate funds to operate the program — all costs now accrue to Ed Fund.

  15. The anticipated cost savings of a Peoria High/Woodruff merger are primarily derived from having larger classes (and hence fewer teachers). These savings can be achieved right now, in the current high schools without the disruption of these two schools which are located in the heart of the neighborhoods. Moreover, I am not suggesting that we do this in absence of a plan that includes working closely with the union groups, decreasing staff through attrition whenever possible and offering incentives.

  16. Right sizing is going to require time and planning so that we do it right the first time.

  17. The citizens of the Woodruff community and other supporters have expressed their willingness to pitch in to help us.

    Finally, perhaps we should take advantage of the benefit of the HB0217 that is an act that amends the property tax code to allow a certain area to be named a special service area.

  18. 35 ILCS 200/27-60 provides that the corporate authorities for a municipality that establishes a special services area may petition the circuit court to make the Woodruff community a special service area. This could bring in the immediate revenue needed to provide the time needed to address the right sizing of the District as well as time to develop a sustainable plan for District 150’s future health.

This plan makes a lot of sense. Of the plans I’ve heard so far to fix District 150’s budget woes, I like this one the best. It’s worth some serious consideration. I especially like items 1, 2, 3, 11, and 12 because they deal directly with many of the issues on which District 150 has received the most criticism.

City of Peoria, Museum Block, Peoria County, Peoria Park District

More than just sales taxes may support museum

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Did you know that your property taxes indirectly support Lakeview Museum? Karrie Alms does. She’s a community activist and frequent commenter here at the Peoria Chronicle. While doing her usual detailed research, she came across a property tax levy fund titled “Fund 123 MUSEUM PEORIA PARK.” That caught her eye, so she asked Park Board President Tim Cassidy about it. He explained:

Presently Lakeview museum owns and operates museum operations. The PPD [Peoria Park District] owns the land and building and allows Lakeview to use it under an agreement that is now several decades old.

Mr. Cassidy also confirmed that Lakeview does not pay rent for its use of the building, and “the amount of [the] museum fund levy going to Lakeview museum facility is $189,234 per the 2009 budget.” Not having to pay rent or upkeep on the building and grounds surely helps Lakeview’s bottom line and also explains why they didn’t include funds for capital improvement in their pro forma for the proposed downtown museum.

So, what happens if/when the museum moves downtown? As I reported in a previous post (“Is Peoria’s History Getting a Back Seat?” July 13, 2007) after talking to museum officials, “When the new museum opens, Lakeview is planning to hang on to its building at Lake and University to be used for storage because there’s not going to be enough storage space at the new museum. In particular, there’s not very much space planned in the new museum for special, climate-controlled storage of fragile pieces.” However, it doesn’t appear that the Park District has agreed to let the museum continue to use the building. Cassidy told Alms:

If Lakeview museum left the site to go downtown [its] continued [use] of present site would be subject to further agreement based on PPD needs for the facility. […] PPD has no final plans for Lakeview facility use if museum leaves. It remains open for discussion, although one use considered is a senior recreation/leisure facility for programming needs.

Cassidy also said that continued use of the Lakeview building “has never been approved by PPD. In fact specific request has not been made for PPD to formally act.”

If the new museum is unable to use the current Lakeview building for storage, they will have to find storage elsewhere. Without a rent-free (i.e., taxpayer-subsidized) facility to use, cost of that storage would impact the museum’s profitability. The Museum Collaboration Group can’t just assume they will be able to continue using that building (rent-free, at that) when their lease expires in 2012. Off-site, specialized storage costs should be figured into their pro forma.

The Park District/Lakeview Museum arrangement also raises another question. In the ground lease the Museum Collaboration Group signed with the City of Peoria for the old Sears block, it has this interesting provision:

11.2 Permitted Assignees. Notwithstanding anything in this Lease to the contrary, Tenant may assign Tenant’s interest in the Lease as follows:

11.2.1 Peoria Park District. Provided the District (“Peoria Park District”) agrees, the Tenant may assign Tenant’s leasehold interest in this Lease to the Peoria Park District, subject to the following: (i) Tenant shall not be relieved of any of its obligations under this Lease and Redevelopment Agreement; (ii) the Peoria Park District shall be obligated to observe the terms and conditions of the Lease applicable to Tenant; provided, however, that the Peoria Park District shall have no personal liability to Landlord, Tenant or any third parties with respect to the Lease, the Redevelopment Agreement or the Real Property, with such liability limited strictly to Tenant’s leasehold interest in the Lease; and (iii) the Landlord shall be entitled to enforce the provisions of the Lease and the Redevelopment Agreement directly against the Tenant, who shall continue to have available to it all the rights and obligations of the Tenant under this Lease and Redevelopment Agreement notwithstanding such assignment.

The “Tenant” would be the Peoria Riverfront Museum, and the “obligations under this lease” would include repair, maintenance, alterations, and additions to the building and grounds. If the museum were to assign its interest in the lease to the Park District, then the Park District could use its funds — i.e., Peoria property taxes — to maintain the building and grounds. Here you can check about student loan interest deduction with guide of an experienced firm like taxfyle. That would certainly be more than taxpayers bargained for if they approve the sales tax referendum on April’s ballot.

No deal has been made to assign the lease to the Park District at this time according to Cassidy. But the legal language is in place and could be acted upon if the sales tax referendum is approved and construction of the facility is allowed to proceed. It’s something to think about when you go to the polls on April 7.

City of Peoria, Comcast

Comcast gets raked over the coals

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Over 60 people showed up at City Hall on Tuesday evening for a chance to tell Comcast what they think of the city’s only cable provider. Comcast representatives Debra Piscola (Director of Government Affairs) and John Niebur (District Director) listened as over 30 residents — including six city council members — expressed frustration over service and pricing issues.

The most common complaints were:

  • No local customer service — When you need to call Comcast, there is no local number available; you have to call an 800 number and talk to a call center in some other city. There were also complaints over how long it takes these call centers to answer the phone.
  • Channel movement — C-SPAN2, EWTN, and other analog channels were reassigned to digital channels, and some channels such as National Geographic were reassigned to most expensive cable packages.
  • Pricing — When Comcast first took over Insight, they said they weren’t going to raise prices, then immediately raised prices. Then they reassigned channels, some to more expensive tiers, causing many residents to feel they were paying more for less service. One person reported that he was quoted one price, but when he threatened to switch to a satellite service, he received a lower price, prompting him to ask what the real price is. Another resident similarly asked for “transparency in pricing.”

One person requested the ability to choose which cable channels he wanted and pay only for those (also known as “a la carte” pricing). Another complained that he was given a 12-hour service window, meaning he had to wait around his house from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the cable company to do a simple installation; the cable technician showed up at 7:50 p.m.

The Comcast representatives answered some questions, but mostly just thanked the audience for expressing their concerns and promised to address those concerns in their franchise agreement negotiations with the city.

City council members in attendance were Clyde Gulley (1st District), Bob Manning (3rd District), Bill Spears (4th District), Pat Nichting (5th District), Ryan Spain (at-large), George Jacob (at-large), and Eric Turner (at-large). Gulley left early, but the rest of the council members in attendance said that they get numerous complaints from constituents regarding the cable company. Spain said the number of complaints he gets rivals the number of people calling about more expensive and controversial issues like the CSO project and the recent downtown hotel plans.

Turner said that he wouldn’t support a new franchise agreement if service issues aren’t addressed and improved. Unfortunately, that’s somewhat of an empty threat, since state law allows cable companies to get franchise agreements directly through the state, bypassing local municipalities completely. City Attorney Randy Ray says the public hearing Tuesday night is one advantage of having a local franchise agreement — if Comcast were to get a state franchise, local residents likely would have to trek to Springfield for any public hearings regarding cable service.

Original plans were to bring a new franchise agreement to the council for approval at the next scheduled meeting. However, due to the “level of dissatisfaction,” Ray said it may take a little longer to negotiate an agreement that the council will support. The last 20-year franchise agreement expired in April 2006, but has been temporarily extended multiple times during negotiations for a new agreement.