What terrible news that Dr. Reilly is leaving our district. She worked hard to guide the district though our terrible financial mess. THANK YOU JAMIE.
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So the Board is now asking the voters to again approve a financing referendum by voting last night before the December 10th deadline to place a referendum question on the February 26th ballot.
The Board almost has to place the SAME QUESTION on the April 9th ballot as the deadline for April 9 is January 21 - five weeks before the primary election on February 26.
If the referendum fails on February 26 with no question on the April 9th ballot, then the school district will have a wonderful facility built over this summer and summer 2013 but not enough money to run the district until the 2014 elections.
Interesting problem for the school board to face while again looking for a new superintendent - the district's 5th leader in 6 years.

Yes,Miss arrogant board president, the meetings need to have microphones so that all that take the time to attend, can hear what is said, If you are going to use visual effects, then use print on the screen that can be seen...Your rude behavior is unacceptable for someone in your position.

Annabelle,

Don, Joe is not asking for the meeting to be recorded, he is asking for them to either talk louder or use microphones. What are they trying to hide. Now that they are putting on the ballot in February, we must VOTE AND VOTE NO.

Residents of District 67. You can videotape the meeting. As long as you videotape the entire meeting, you can broadcast it on cable access. You would be doing a service to parents and all residents who pay taxes to Golf School.

There was a video camera going, I assumed it was from the media..hopefully he caught the dumbfounded look on Miss arrogant"s face when the question was asked if the salaries for golf school were the highest of any middle school in Il...{as posted in the Chicago Tribune}......and she attempted to move on with out answering.....all the guy wanted was a simple yes or no....

School District Revenue is directly related to the funding budget formula:
TAX RATE X EQUALIZED ASSESSED VALUATION.
The area's assessed valuation is down.
The TAX RATE is at the maximum by law.
Therefore REVENUE WILL BE LESS.
The only way to increase revenue is to increase the assessed valuation and/or the TAX RATE. Housing prices are not going up in the foreseeable future.
The only alternative is increasing the TAX RATE which requires a REFERENDUM.
No one wants to pay more taxes. But without a good school district, new home buyers will skip this area and buy elsewhere. Fewer buyers will impact the price of all of our homes. AND as homes sell of less, the property's real estate tax goes down - further impacting the school district's revenue. Unfortuanately, to help protect our home values, a successful referendum will be required - either in February or April (if the board acts before Janaury 21) or the next election in March 2014.

Just looking at the photos posted with this article, I notice that all board members plus the superintendent have the exact same laptop. Coincidence? Or was money from the school's budget spent to purchase those? Can't they get their agendas, notes, whatever printed on paper? Why is so much unnecessary money being spent by this district? I agree with Katie -- we ALL have learned to live within our budgets during this horrible economic crisis, why can't the district do the same? Vote NO on February 26!

The only way to defeat the referendum is to go out and vote on February 26, 2013 and vote "NO".

SD67 Board has few choices after reducing programs and cutting back in expenses:
1. Ask voters for a tax rate increase. Which they will do every election until passed.
2. Give up and turn the district over to the State Board of Education and let them run the district.
3. Continue to pursue consolidation but every surrounding school district has already said no for the last 20 years.
4. Deannex portions of the district to other districts to 'lighten' SD67 load.
Such as the eastern portion of homes on Capri and Emerson surrounded by SD70 Parkview homes. They are only in the district due to a line drawn on a map 100 years ago.
Or maybe Niles children should go tot school with other Niles children in SD71 Culver? Children in villages of Golf and Glenview go to school in Glenview after these areas deannexed from SD67. But this is not an easy process.
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So 5. revert to #1 and / or #2.
I believe if #2 is selected the State has the authority to automatically raise rates to meet the needs of the district. So at least with #1 the voters get a say.

Is the district trying to sneak this one through during a light primary election - Shame on you! I will vote NO and work hard to make sure my neighbors do the same - I am also considering putting together a list of salaries and raises over the last 5 years by teacher (it is public) and sending it to D67 residents or maybe publishing it as an op-ed in the Champion. This will allow the residents to compare it to their raises and benefits they received over the last five years Guess who go the better deal? The residents need to be informed.