Poll shows slim support for District 64’s proposed $98 million facilities plan
More than half of Park Ridge-Niles District 64 voters would back a roughly $98.4 million facility improvement plan, new poll data revealed.
But support dropped when poll participants learned the plan would increase district property taxes.
The results of the district-commissioned poll of 200 registered voters were unveiled during Thursday night’s school board meeting. The board hasn’t decided whether to put the proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot. A decision is expected Aug. 15.
District 64 officials went over the numbers with consultants Thursday at Jefferson School in Niles. A video of the discussion is available on the district’s YouTube channel.
Officials are considering borrowing money to pay for health, safety, and security upgrades; mechanical and infrastructure improvements; classroom and science lab upgrades; the addition of space for special education programs; and more.
The proposed to-do list and the sum the district could borrow haven’t been finalized.
“We are still working on lowering it,” spokesman Chris Lilly said in an email.
If voters were to approve the current proposal, the owner of a house valued at $500,000 could pay an estimated $488 more in taxes to the district the first year, Lilly said.
About 52% of the people polled said they’d support the plan, while 33% said they wouldn’t, a report from Public Opinion Strategies revealed. Other respondents said they were undecided.
Once the people were told of the potential tax impact, 43% said they’d be less likely to vote for the plan. After respondents were told all the details of the plan, 45% said they’d vote for it and 44% said they wouldn’t, documents indicate.
“They were pretty tax sensitive,” said Paul Hanley of Beyond Your Base, one of the political consulting groups working with the district.
Hanley recommended the board put the plan on the November ballot because voter turnout historically is greater for presidential elections.
With the economic future uncertain, Superintendent Ben Collins said developing alternatives to the current plan would be prudent.
The board will review less-costly options at a special meeting at 6 p.m. July 17.
District 64 parent Erica Green spoke of touring Lincoln Middle School in Park Ridge and experiencing sweltering heat in one classroom, seeing exposed electrical conduits on the floor of another and visiting a basement cafeteria without emergency exits or fire sprinklers.
“A referendum is the only way that we’re going to complete all of these critical upgrades in a timely manner,” Green said. “And that is what our students and community deserve.”
District 64’s last referendum was in 1997 to fund construction of Emerson Middle School in Niles.
D64 poll results.pdf