By now, you’ve probably heard or read about how museum supporters successfully discouraged efforts by county school superintendents to put a referendum on the April 7 ballot. That referendum would have been very similar to the museum referendum, only instead of money going toward a museum and big-screen theater, the money would have gone toward school facilities in Peoria County. Each school district would get a portion of the sales tax proceeds based on enrollment. Museum supporters decided county residents shouldn’t have that choice because it would threaten passage of the museum tax. You can read the letters here.

The Journal Star got reaction from some museum supporters.

“We met with school superintendents and in very cordial conversations decided it seemed to be a matter of timing,” [Michael] Bryant [head of the CEO roundtable and the CEO of Methodist Medical Center] said. “The superintendents didn’t have a plan or projects ready, when on the other hand, the museum’s time is now. After April 7, if the referendum doesn’t pass, the museum goes away.”

First of all, this is simply false. The superintendents did and still do have projects ready. IVC is ready to build additions. Brimfield needs a new high school. Peoria Heights wants to pay off bond debt which will lower property taxes in the village. And I think we all know that District 150, which would receive the lion’s share of any sales tax proceeds, has just a few building projects underway or commencing soon. I frankly don’t know how anyone could claim with a straight face that school superintendents in Peoria County “didn’t have a plan or projects ready.” Why would they even be pursuing this option if they didn’t have a plan for how the money would be used?

But secondly, and more importantly, there’s no requirement under the statute that the superintendents have a plan before asking for a referendum to be placed on the ballot. So the argument is a red herring anyway.

“The county made the museum a top priority in February of 2008 and started working toward the goal of finding a funding mechanism,” [County Administrator Patrick] Urich said. “We met with school officials last summer and talked about the path the museum was on and that it was first in line with the sales tax referendum. The fact that the museum group definitely had a plan in place and the schools had no definitive plan on how it intended to spend the money kept us on this path.”

What is this imaginary “line” to which Urich refers? The statute states that if school districts representing 51% or more of the county’s total school enrollment votes to put a referendum on the ballot, the county is obligated to put it on the ballot. The county is not the gatekeeper as Urich implies — there is no statutory limit on the number of referenda that can be placed on the ballot, and referenda are not placed on a first-come-first-served basis. There is simply no “line” in which to wait.

Anything the county had to say to the superintendents would have been advisory at best. And that begs the question: Why was the county meeting with the school superintendents? Was the county also trying to dissuade them from putting the school funding referendum on the ballot?

Bryant said school districts will have future opportunities to see if voters are willing to raise sales taxes to pay help schools. The museum won’t.

With all due respect, that’s the museum’s problem, not the school districts’. Schools should not have to take a back seat because the museum group has been incapable of raising the funds they need over the last seven years.