We are writing as members of the Fiscal Action Team to inform River Forest residents of the rigorous, critical and independent review we made of public school finances in late fall, 2005. The board of education of River Forest School District 90 convened the Fiscal Action Team in early October, 2005. The school board sought an independent, diverse citizen-advisory panel to evaluate all aspects of Dist. 90’s revenues and expenses. Our group included River Forest residents with backgrounds in business, banking, law, health care, academia and consulting, as well as other involved, long-standing community members.

We met weekly for six weeks and thoroughly reviewed current revenues and expenses, analyzed historical data, and evaluated financial projections and assumptions underlying a projected deficit in 2008. We engaged in vigorous discussion and disagreements and challenged each other’s thinking. These deliberations caused us to reach two important conclusions. One conclusion is that Dist. 90 is well managed from a financial standpoint, resulting from the board of education’s strong financial stewardship. The second conclusion is that Dist. 90 provides an award-winning educational product that encourages parents to seek out River Forest and enhance property values for all River Forest residents.

One of our key challenges was to understand how state-mandated tax caps affect Dist. 90’s ability to increase revenues. In 1994, the Illinois state legislature enacted property tax caps to provide accountability for local taxing bodies. These caps limit revenue increases for all identified school districts to the lesser of CPI (a measure of inflation) or 5 percent. In the past five years, CPI has averaged 2.5 percent while expenses have increased 6.6 percent annually. This gap exists despite many efforts and initiatives launched by the school board to limit and manage expense growth.

Expense growth is due to many of the same factors contributing to higher prices in the broader economy: health care costs, salary costs and rising energy and utility costs. On top of this, school districts are subject to enrollment increases, as in River Forest, and the increasing costs of state and federal mandates. In Dist. 90, these mandates amount to $4.2 million, but state and federal funding only provide $1.5 million in revenues. We also looked at salaries and other expenses and, based on data from comparable school districts, satisfied ourselves that these expenses are average within the range. Although we encouraged the board of education to continue its fiscal discipline and expense containment, we could not identify an area of expense reduction that would come close to meeting the projected $3 million deficit.

Our committee worked with a great sense of responsibility to the community and the schools. At the end of the process, it was the consensus of the Fiscal Action Team to recommend an increase in the property tax rate to support Dist. 90 schools. Our recommendation was made after extensive analysis and deliberation.

We are proud of our exceptional, award-winning educational system and want to continue to provide the high-quality education for the children of River Forest.

We hope River Forest residents will join us on March 21 and vote YES in favor of the Dist. 90 referendum.

Jon Bergstrom, Paulette Change,
Susan Charrette, Deidre Connolly, P.J. Hosty, Carlotta Lucchesi, Leah Marcus, Raymond McGaugh, John Meister, Janice Pyrce, Debbie Sloan, Robert Sloan, Frank Zarate

Fiscal Action Team Members