Batavia School District: Always Growing

Residents of Batavia are quickly reaching a tipping point. The typical homeowner's tax load has grown at an accelerating rate, and many have expressed frustration and pain over this crushing burden.

Taxing Times

These graphs demonstrate how much the district has required of its community in the previous decade.

This graph represents the amount of Tax Levy money used in the district's Fiscal Year Budget

Beginning with the value of the levy in 2004 (~$35 Million), the level of economic growth and inflation (CPI) indicates that the levy should have only increased to about $44 Million today, yet Batavia finances the district from local property at a level that's over $65 Million. Our community is taxed 47% above the level that would have matched natural economic growth.

Student growth cannot account for the dramatic rise in expense. Indeed, enrollment has been declining and is expected to continue declining for the foreseeable future.

Simultaneously, home values have stagnated, so the tax rate for every home and business has skyrocketed.

This is unsustainable, and the community is in a precarious position: if taxes continue to rise, property values will diminish. As property values drop, the district will need to extract more value from each property, and this negative feedback loop will eventually bankrupt the school district and its residents.

Follow the Money

A natural question to ask is, "Where is all this money going?" Some of it is going toward education in the classroom, paying teachers, and maintaining daily operations. However, non-education expenses have risen faster than the expenses directly related to education.

The spike is due to the 2007 referendum, but non-education expenses continue to grow per student while education related expenses have remained flat.

One area that has clearly grown is administration--it has ballooned in particular since TIF District #2 Expired. The implication of these charts is that it must be approximately 50% harder to administrate than only two years ago.

Community Advocates

Batavia needs a School Board who will work to keep expenses down, operations streamlined, and ensure that every dollar spent is justified.

Vote GRO (Gabriel, Rechenmacher, Olache) to hold the district accountable as we seek a sustainable future.

Referendum Mandate

Thanks to the expiration of Aurora TIF #2, the Batavia School District started receiving an additional $6 million in revenue per year. The Board described this as, "the type of windfall that districts dream of" [Finance Committee Meeting, 22 October 2013].

Many in the community asked the School Board to refund some of this tax money to lower the growing property tax burden. These voices received a common reply, "These funds were anticipated in the budget adopted in September 2013 and were the source of approving the additional staff and capital improvements included within that budget." The Board never intended to lower the levy; spending and taxation has only increased.

Not long after receiving the dreamy windfall, the Board proposed a $15 million bond referendum for capital improvements. Batavia resoundingly voted NO to the "advisory question." The message the board received from the 75% NO vote was that the community was opposed to debt [1]. The residents of Batavia are tired of their tax burden, they're tired of the accelerating spending, and they're tired of the justifications that come from a Board that is out of touch with the community they represent.

The 8,000 voters who said NO care about more than debt. The landslide vote was a mandate to the Batavia School District to manage its finances and control its spending.

Every School Board Member takes an oath:

I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the School District’s assets;

I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow Board members and others who seek a hearing before the Board, while respecting the privacy of students and employees;

I shall recognize that a Board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public Board meeting; and

I shall abide by majority decisions of the Board, while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels.

It is time the School Board remember the oath they took and represent the interests of Batavia's taxpayers.

[1] Mentioned in the Finance Committee Meeting on 11/13/14 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDPdZ6tJOMo