On Monday Superintendent Thompson presented possible options to address District 15′s structural deficit. The presentation can be found at Budget Update: District 15 seeks feedback on potential budget reductions and video from the meeting is available at http://www.youtube.com/d15spotlight.
There’s an active dialogue in the Palatine Patch article about the budget reduction options. Some Q&A follows related to quotes (in italics below) from the reader comments:
Q: How can property taxes go up when property values are going down? (“My home’s value in Palatine has dropped about 18%, yet my taxes just went up 13%”)
A: I studied the November 2011 property tax bills to see how the tax levy increases of approximately 3% were reflected in individual tax bills. Individual bills varied widely from a decrease of 13% to an increase of 20% with an average increase of about 3%. The major factors causing the wide range were the property reassessments (every three years in Cook County) and how individual properties were affected by the phaseout of the “7% Expanded Homeowner Exemption.” See Fall 2011 Property Tax Bills for more info.
Q: Does the decline in property values affect school district property tax revenues? (“The decline in property values lies at the heart of all this”)
A: No, it doesn’t. Illinois designed the property tax system to provide a stable revenue stream to taxing bodies such as school districts but limits “levy” (revenue) increases to the rate of inflation. As levies and property values go up or down the tax rate (levy divided by total property values) is adjusted to compensate. Details for District 15 can be found at Fall 2011 Property Tax Bills.
Q: How fast are inflation, revenues, salaries and benefits going up? (“Teacher and staff pay is a big part of the budget, but it’s not the fastest growing cost by far. Health care costs are already big and growing fast.”)
A: Let’s look at each individually:
Inflation: Annual inflation has been 2.4% since 2008-09 (the last year District 15 had a balanced budget). Yearly numbers are 2.7% in 2009, 1.5% in 2010, 3.0% in 2011 and estimated at 2.25% for 2012.
Revenues: Revenues have gone up 2.0% annually (excluding $1.3 million in federal stimulus revenue in 2008-09) from 2008-09 to 2012-13.
Salaries: Salaries in the Education Fund are up 3.4% annually from $78.0 million in 2008-09 to $89.0 million next year.
Benefits: Benefits for all District 15 employees are up 7.0% annually from $21.3 million in 2008-09 to $27.9 million next year.
Bottom line is that both salaries and benefits have gone up faster than revenue. Salaries have gone up faster than benefits on a $ basis and benefits have gone up faster on a % basis.
Q: What are the actual teacher raises in recent years? (“teachers … have been getting 6% raises over the past 3 years” and “our yearly raises … about 40$ more a paycheck than the previous year”)
A: For the 749 teachers employed full-time in both 2009-10 and 2010-11, the average salary increased by 4.7% (about $3500) to $77,800.
For the 648 teachers employed full-time for the four years ending 2010-11, the average annual increase was 5.2% to $80,700.
Q: What are the actual administrator raises in recent years? (“Start at the top and freeze their salaries for a few years” and “higher up administration salary/freezes”)
A: For the 47 administrators employed full-time in both 2009-10 and 2010-11, the typical salary increase was 2.3% to average $107,100 in 2010-11.
For the 29 administrators employed full-time for the four years ending 2010-11, the typical annual increase was 2.9% to average $111,000 in 2010-11.
