Last year, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation that allowed District 150 to request funds from the Public Building Commission (PBC) for the purposes of constructing new school buildings. The money for that construction will be collected from the property taxes of residents within District 150 without their consent. If the legislation had not been passed, the school district would have had to ask the voters through a referendum for the money to build the schools.

The standard argument is that it’s impossible to pass a referendum because no one votes to raise their own taxes. If we had to wait for a referendum to pass, we would never get new school buildings, supporters of the legislation claim. When asked on the State Senate floor why the school board hasn’t tried a referendum, then-Senator Shadid could only muster this argument:

I can only tell you that when I tried to build a county jail, we had three referendums that failed and we finally had to go to the public building commission in 1985 to get a jail built that was to replace the jail that was a hundred and twenty-five years old.

Translation: Since it was so difficult twenty-two years ago to pass a referendum to build a jail, obviously it will be impossible now to get a referendum passed to build new schools.

But more and more evidence to the contrary is piling up. Just last year, the Peoria Public Library put a referendum on the ballot asking for residents to raise their own taxes so the library could modernize and build a new branch in the north part of town. And now, there’s news out of Normal, Illinois that (gasp!) voters passed a referendum allowing the school district there to build new schools:

The referendum to issue $96.7 million in building bonds passed 12,049 to 8,543, or about 59 percent to 41 percent. The proposal to raise property taxes by 10 cents per $100 equalized assessed valuation passed 10,625 to 10,118, or about 51 percent to about 49 percent. … Voters OK’d building two new elementary schools and a middle school, expanding Sugar Creek Elementary School, renovating existing eight schools and installing security and technology improvements to 15 schools.

Note that in Normal, their taxes will actually be going up, not simply staying the same as older bonds are paid off as is reportedly the case in Peoria. My question is, if Normal can do it, why can’t Peoria? Why is the Peoria school district afraid to ask voters for their okay? Why do they insist on doing an end run around the democratic process by going to the PBC?

I think the difference is this: the entity asking for money has to make their case to their constituents. They have to make their case, and they have to make it convincingly. The school board has shown an inability to do either of those things, especially the latter. People are concerned about student performance and safety, and this spending spree for new buildings will address neither of those concerns. In fact, it diverts effort and attention away from the main problems.

Without the support of the electorate, the school board has to find a way to get the money from their constituents without their consent, and state legislators (helped along by some false statements by Aaron Schock) were more than happy to oblige.

Nevertheless, our school board members and legislators enjoy high approval ratings, if yesterday’s election was any indication. First district school board member Martha Ross ran unopposed for another term. Rep. Schock collected over 70% of the vote for the 18th Congressional race, despite his de facto raising of District 150 residents’ taxes.

Incidentally, they also passed a referendum in Rochester, Illinois (just outside of Springfield) for $26 million in school construction money. All these cities are defying the odds, apparently.