No Room For Referendum in D159 Levy Plan

If approves a tax levy the Finance Committee recommended Wednesday night, the district couldn't take the money from a long-shot referendum even if proponents pushed it through.

"We are, I think, working within the financial reality we have," interim Superintendent Steve Stein said about the $12.7 million levy plan the committee recommended.

In November 2010, just days after , the district under asked for $14.3 million, in the hopes voters would approve the referendum next time around.

Instead, .

If the full board approves the Finance Committee's recommended levy, this will moot any talk of referendum, not that there has been public talk of a fourth attempt.

"A referendum hasn't even been in discussion in board meetings," board member and Finance Committee Chairman Scott Peters said.

Why would this moot a referendum? Because when it comes to levying, if you don't ask for the money, you can't take it even if it comes.

To figure a district's chunk of the tax money in Will County or any other county bound by Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, you start with the amount the district got the year before. Then you figure in three numbers: inflation, the value of homes in the district and the amount of new construction.

Unfortunately, those three numbers won't be available until after the December deadline to get the levy request into the county.

"It's part of a guessing game to a point," Peters said of levying.

Guess too low, a district (school, park, etc.) is stuck with the amount it asked for, even if it should have gotten more. Guess too high, it gets the lower amount it's due.

That's what happened last year. Mokena 159 asked for that $14.3 million, but after the referenda failed, got the $12.1 million they would have gotten anyway.

If the board hadn't asked for the bigger amount – like it didn't this year – it couldn't have gotten the money no matter what voters said.

Mokena 159's budget crisis gives the district a few more unknowns beyond the guessing every district in a PTELL county must do.

Mokena doesn't know if it will close . It doesn't know if it will continue the Head Start program now that the state has cut funding. It doesn't know if .

And it doesn't know the long-term cost of those decisions.

"If you don't have some type of program to help these at-risk kids, the trickle-down effect down the road may cost you more in terms of setting up special ed classes," Peters said of Head Start.

This article has been updated to correct Superintendent Stein's first name.