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Madison County School Facility Sales Tax (CSFT)

At its meeting last night, the District 7 Board of Education approved a resolution to support the 1% County School Facility Sales Tax for placement on the March 2018 ballot. The School Facility Sales Tax would provide revenue to schools to be used exclusively for school facility purposes including:

Acquisition, development, construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, improvement, financing, architectural planning, and installation of capital facilities consisting of buildings, structures, and durable equipment and the acquisition and improvement of real property required, or expected to be required, in connection with the capital facilities;
Payment of bonds or other obligations heretofore or hereafter issued for school facility purposes (new school facility bond issues or retirement of existing school facility debt); and Health life safety and fire prevention, energy conservation, disabled accessibility, and school security.

As discussed with the Facilities Committee of the Board at its November 16, 2017 meeting, the District and its architect, Woolpert, Inc., have identified over $12 million in Health Life Safety work that needs to be completed throughout District 7 school buildings. Most of this work has been deferred during both the District’s and State of Illinois’ financial crisis.

If approved, the sales tax would generate over $4 million on an annual basis that could be used to complete the over $12 million in identified Health Life Safety work without issuing bonds and increasing the District’s debt service tax rate. In addition, a portion of the funding from the sales tax could be used to assist with the future retirement of existing school facility debt.

As a reminder, the CSFT would apply to everything in the municipal and county sales tax base except for:

Cars, Trucks, ATVs, Boats, Mobile Homes, and RVs 1
Unprepared Food
Drugs (including over-the-counter and vitamins)
Farm Equipment, Parts, and Inputs

Items that cannot be paid from the sales tax revenue generated from the CSFT include:

Salaries and Overhead
Direct Instructional Costs
Textbooks and Computers
Buses
Detached Furniture and Fixtures
Recurring Operating Costs

Liberty 8th Grade Girls’ Basketball Team Wins State Championship

The Liberty eighth-grade girls’ basketball team won the IESA Class 4A state championship with a 44-30 victory over Shorewood Troy.

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The Panthers, who were in the eighth-grade state tournament for the fifth time in program history, finished the season 26-0. Liberty won the seventh-grade state championship the past two seasons with a majority of the same roster.

Members of the team include Sydney Harris, Macy Silvey, Elle Evans, Kate Conner, Ashlyn Hauk, Violet McNece, Grace Daech, Morgan Hogue, Kennedy Fox, Alexis Bond, Ariana Bennett, Kaitlyn Conway, and Claire Dunivan. The team is coached by Char Bond and Katie Bevis O’Neal. Congratulations to the Liberty Panthers!

Update on 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 Fiscal Year State Funding

The District is currently owed approximately $200,000 from the State for the 2016-2017 fiscal year. Amounts due from the Illinois State Board of Education:
Special Education – Orphanage
Bilingual Education
State Free Lunch and Breakfast
Orphanage Tuition - 18.3

TOTAL AMOUNT DUE
81,764.04 8,167.00 3,244.55 81,896.80

$175,072.39

The District is currently owed over $1 million from the State for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Amounts due from the Illinois State Board of Education:
Special Education – Private Facility Tuition
Special Education – Orphanage
State Free Lunch and Breakfast
Regular Transportation
Special Education Transportation
Early Childhood Block Grant
Orphanage Tuition - 18.3 TOTAL AMOUNT DUE

District 7 2017 Tax Levy for the 2018-2019 School Year
$83,923.95 12,610.18 1,590.88 383,985.85 293,026.02 230,580.00 33,567.00 $1,039,283.88

The District’s updated 2017 EAV will determine the District’s tax revenues payable during the 2018-2019 school year, and shows an increase of 2.53% before the multiplier is finalized and the Board of Review issues final rulings on pending tax appeals. This is slightly lower than the 2.75% EAV growth rate used to estimate taxes for the 2018-2019 school year at the November 13, 2017, board meeting. Assuming this slightly lower growth rate in 2017 EAV, the District’s 2017 tax levy will be $4.71. The current (2016) tax levy is $4.06.

Most of the projected increase is the result of the following:

a) $0.55 increase in the Education Fund tax rate due to the successful passage of the referendum in April 2017 and
b) $0.06 increase in the Debt Service Tax Rate necessary to fund the required principal and interest payments during the 2018-2019 school year. The Debt Service Tax Rate was scheduled to increase approximately $0.15 prior to the Bond Refunding approved by the Board of Education in October.
The 2017 tax levy is lower than the amount discussed during the Education Fund Referendum campaign of $4.77.

Current Tax Rates – 2017-18 School Year
Edwardsville CUSD #7

Roxana CUSD#1 Collinsville CUSD #10 Alton CUSD #11
$4.0604

$4.1168 $4.5585 $4.82603
Highland CUSD #5
Granite City CUSD #9
Triad CUSD #2
Bethalto CUSD #8
O’Fallon Dist. #90 and #203 Belleville Dist. #118 and #201
$4.8699 $5.0045 $5.2582 $5.3060 $5.4776 $6.0877