Editor's note: This story was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.
Aviston School District 21 has asked voters to approve an increase to its educational fund tax rate three times. Each time, it failed by three votes or less.
Now, the elementary school district — which is mostly in Clinton County but also partially in southeastern Madison County — is making a fourth appeal to voters, this time asking whether the district should increase its maximum educational fund tax rate from 0.92% to 1.12% per $100 of assessed valuation. In other words, it’s requesting to raise the rate from 92 cents to $1.12.
Increasing the educational fund’s tax rate by 20 cents would allow the district to hire more teachers and support staff and reduce class sizes amid growing enrollment and a forthcoming five-classroom addition to Aviston Elementary, according to Superintendent Phillip Hamil.
The tax rate increase would also allow the district to update its curriculum, he said. The school is mainly looking to update its math curriculum school-wide but is also starting to explore new reading curriculum for primary grades.
Enrollment has increased nearly 20% since fall 2019, from 380 students in 2019 to 453 as of Feb. 14, 2024, Hamil said. Two new subdivisions with 35 to 37 lots each are coming to the community, which the district anticipates will lead to further enrollment growth.
“We’re trying to stay ahead of the game,” Hamil said.
School budgets are broken up into separate funds, each of which is used for specific activities and objectives. The educational fund is often the largest and most varied because it covers transactions that aren’t specifically covered in other funds.
“(The educational fund) is the meat and potatoes of school funding,” Hamil said. Teacher salaries and educational materials, including curriculum purchases, come from the educational fund, he added.
The district is hoping to increase the tax rate for its educational fund to generate money for its three referendum goals of hiring more staff, reducing class sizes and updating curriculum.
Aviston Elementary is not as eligible for grants as other schools, so it relies on local tax dollars more and makes that money go further, Hamil said, adding that the school’s yearly budget surplus is minimal.
For fiscal years 2020 through 2022, it had the lowest operating expense per pupil of about 850 public school districts in the state, data from the Illinois State Board of Education shows.
In 2022 — the most recent year with available data — Aviston 21’s operating expense per pupil was $7,335.95 compared to the average of $15,808.12 for all school districts and $16,289.74 for elementary districts.
“We run as lean as we possibly can,” Hamil said.
Aviston 21 had a similar referendum on the ballot during the April 2023 election, when it failed by one vote.
Prior to that, it had made two requests — one in 2016 and another in 2017 — to increase its educational fund tax rate.
Those referenda were prior to Hamil’s tenure as superintendent, but he said the district was dealing with financial challenges, including layoffs, at that time, which was around when Illinois enacted and began implementing evidence-based funding, a revamped education funding formula designed to make the state’s funding of schools more equitable over time.
Aviston 21 was funded at 66% of its adequacy target in the 2022-23 school year, according to Illinois Report Card data.
Elementary school addition
The school broke ground on the addition Tuesday morning in a ceremony that included students, parents and school staff and leaders.
The 13,000-square-foot addition will include five classrooms, a cafeteria expansion and more space for special services.
The classrooms will be added along the west side of the elementary school. On the east side, the cafeteria will be expanded toward the parking lot and office space will be added, where the administrative offices will be moved. The former offices will be used for special services like therapy.
The district is working with FGM Architects for the addition’s design and Poettker Construction Company for construction management.
The $5.9 million project is being funded by bonds the district sold at the beginning of 2023 while retiring old bonds. The initial goal was to keep the tax rate level, but the rate for the district’s debt service fund increased by 0.09, Hamil said. That 9 cent increase will likely be offset by the rising equalized assessed valuation of property within the district.
Construction of the addition is expected to be complete by the end of 2024.
Tax implications
If Aviston School District 21’s referendum passes, the impact of the 20-cent increase in the educational fund tax rate on a resident’s tax bill would depend on their home’s value.
A home with a fair market value of $150,000 would be taxed $88 more, equivalent to 24 cents a day. The increase would be bigger for homes with higher values.
In tax year 2022, Aviston 21’s educational fund tax rate was among the lowest of the nine elementary school districts in Clinton County, about 33 cents less than the average.
Aviston’s overall tax rate — which is the sum of the separate tax rates for each fund within its budget — was the second-lowest at 2.425310.
The request on this year’s ballot is lower than last year, when the board asked voters if it should increase the educational fund tax rate by 25 cents, from 92 cents to $1.17. This go around, the district reduced its request to a 22-cent increase.
That’s because the equalized assessed value of property within the school district has increased, Hamil said, which allows the district to get a similar amount of revenue despite decreasing the request by a nickel.
“(The tax impact) wouldn’t be as significant, and we could still get the revenue to hire a couple of teachers and a staff member,” he said.
“We’ve got to have teachers in the classrooms and be prepared for community growth, and it’s here. We already see the community growth happening.”
Here is the proposition that will be on the ballot for voters who live within Aviston School District 21:
“Shall the maximum annual tax rate for educational purposes for School District No. 21, Clinton and Madison Counties, Illinois, be increased and established at 1.12 percent upon all the taxable property of said School District at the value, as equalized or assessed by the Department of Revenue, instead of 0.92 percent, the present maximum rate otherwise applicable to the next taxes to be extended for said purposes?”
Kelly Smits is a reporter with the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
