School tax hike on the table BY ROSALIND ROSSI AND FRAN SPIELMAN STAFF REPORTERS Chicago homeowners would be hit with the fifth up-to-the-limit school property tax hike in seven years under a public school budget that would slash 400 jobs but also require the system to find 3,000 new teachers. Mayor Daley and Chicago Board of Education officials also touted a state bill Tuesday that would allow the system to raise school property taxes even further--as early as fall 2002--to fund Chicago's massive school building needs. The latest $4.38 billion Chicago Board of Education budget, to be presented to school board members today, would add $18 in school property taxes to a Chicago home with a market value of $100,000, starting with this October's tax bill The 3.4 percent increase would generate $48.8 million and would be the fifth tax-to-the-cap since Daley's team took over the nation's third-largest school system in 1995. It would help fill a $75 million gap between projected revenues and expenses, officials said. But Daley, School Board president Gery Chico and Schools CEO Paul Vallas on Tuesday also expressed support for a state bill that would allow the system's separate construction levy to rise with inflation, by about $3.5 million a year. It would trigger about a $1.75 tax increase on a $100,000 Chicago home as early as the October 2002, tax bill, and would support bonds that could fund $50 million a year in school repair and construction. The influx of funds is needed because about $2.6 billion in school construction dollars will nearly dry up this coming budget year, but the system still faces an estimated $2.3 billion in unfilled needs, officials said. The latest budget allots $200 million for construction of seven new schools and four additions, including a replacement for Simeon High School and a new school to relieve overcrowding at Kelvyn Park. Vallas was not optimistic about the school construction bill's passage but said if it does pass, "The overall hit is small. I don't like to raise property taxes at all, but until you reform school funding in Illinois, local school districts are going to continue to be dependent on school property taxes." The proposed tax hikes came on the heels of a downturn in elementary math and high school reading scores for the first time in at least five years, but an uptick in elementary reading scores. Daley, who has been prodding school leaders to produce bigger academic gains, insisted he was not ready for new leadership. His handpicked team has "done a very good job," Daley said. Jacqueline Levy, executive director of the Neighborhood Budget Group, said the two proposed school tax hikes could be "a formula for taxpayer anger." Levy said some communities are still upset about what they see as broken promises to build schools that were listed in the board's capital budget plans. Some 75 Latino protesters brought their complaints to City Hall this week and demanded that Daley build the Little Village High School they were promised in 1998. "Ever since Northside and Walter Payton [college preps] opened, all we heard was, `Why did those schools get built before they took care of the neighborhood high schools?' " Levy said. Vallas said the city school construction tax proposal could generate money needed to match any new state or federal construction dollars. Every Illinois school district except for Chicago's can raise construction levies to match the rate of inflation or 5 percent, whichever is less, he said. The school budget also calls for 400 job cuts, the most since 1995. The cutbacks include eliminating 93 one-time teaching positions, 70 high school academic resource coordinators, 58 people awaiting termination hearings or the end of their principal contracts, 28 truancy coordinators, and 25 teachers in two academic prep centers that are being closed because of lack of enrollment. The system also plans to hire about 3,000 new teachers, including 556 because of enrollment increases and 2,500 to replace those lost to normal attrition. The 556 new teachers should cost about $30 million, while the 400 job cuts should save $22.2 million, Vallas said. Some questioned where Chicago will find 3,000 teachers, when more than halfway through this school year it still needed 1,300. Finding that many teachers by July in the midst of a growing national teacher shortage is "a long shot, and they need to make sure it's a sure shot," said Barbara Radner of DePaul University's Center for Urban Education. She suggested financial incentives. Chico said he's not willing to commit to financial incentives yet, although they are worth considering. For the moment, "I am concerned that it will be very competitive out there, but I also believe the system is up to the task." Contributing: Curtis Lawrence, Abdon Pallasch -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
