Voters in Granite City defeated a property-tax increase that would have saw the tax levy for the Granite City School District increase by 80 cents, from $2.55 to $3.35 per $100 of assessed valuation.
A total of 3,042 voted to reject the hike, while 2,620 voted in favor, a difference of 422 votes.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
Granite City Community Unit School District No. 9 had requested the increase due to dwindling amounts of funding being supplied by Illinois. The vote also came in the wake of a recent announcement by United States Steel that the Granite City Works plant – known locally as Granite City Steel – would be shutting down for six months beginning in late May because of dwindling orders for flat-rolled steel.
“We don't want to make excuses, but the Granite City Steel announcement was very bad timing,” said Granite City school superintendent Jim Greenwald. “We were campaigning for the increase since back in November, and it is a disappointment that it was turned down.
“We did all we could to get this passed, but we knew we were facing a difficult campaign; 80 percent of all referendums like this fail.”
Greenwald said that the new board, which begins its duties in May, will talk over what happened and try to figure out what to do next.
“We'll have a new board coming in, with two folks (Beverly Scroggins and Carolyn Yates) returning and a new member (Bill McMasters) coming in,” Greenwald said. “We'll talk it over and figure out the best way to go.”
Despite the sting of the defeat, Greenwald vowed to continue to find ways to provide the best education for the students of the district.
“We'll show up to work in the morning and go back to the drawing board and figure out what went wrong,” Greenwald said. “We will do what is best for everyone."
