During a question and answer period after a virtual informational presentation on the Unit 5 referendum this week, Superintendent Kristen Weikle was asked how much revenue the district would be getting from new subdivisions. Weikle asked Chief Financial Officer Marty Hickman to respond.
“We have reached out to a few local governments and agencies around town to see if anyone has done any estimate on the EAV (Equalized Assessed Value)) on each one of these two developments (Carden Springs and Infiniti Point),” Hickman said. We have not found that anyone has.”
“We just started a project with a demographer to start looking into that ourselves, not only the value of that potential property but then also we would assume we will have some extra students from that as well.” Hickman continued. “Yes we will have some revenue. Right now it is undetermined. But we will certainly have expenses with that.”
“Many of these developments won’t happen overnight,” Weikle added. “So they are going to take anywhere from one to five years and so just like some of the families moving in will occur gradually so does the money, the tax revenue, it comes gradually to all governmental bodies.”
That question has been asked and answered before. And so have other questions. Naturally, all the questions are being asked and discussed in the community. And everyone that has heard the question has not heard an answer from Unit 5. So they repeat themselves.
Likewise, forgive us if we do the same. The questions being asked are important. At the risk of being repetitive we believe informing the public is also important.
In that vein the question is still being asked about the $88 million that the district has in cash reserves and why the district doesn’t spend it before asking for more revenue.
Hickman again responded, “So really the big piece of this, and it’s an important piece, is approximately $50 million of that is currently the proceeds from working cash bonds.”
Hickman continued, “So the $50 million that we have talked about many times over the years, certainly the past year for the most recent cash bond issue, that’s already earmarked for this current school year we are in and the next two, to cover most of the structural deficit in the education fund.”
“The other piece of this is what our fund reserves really should be.” Hickman explained. “And I will say unfortunately, our fund reserves in all of our funds, education funds being the largest, really are not what we would hope they would be.
“Really you need enough in a fund balance so that you can weather a year or two of decreased revenue, or increased expenses without any change to your programs,” Hickman expounded. “Currently we do not have that.”
“And the third thing I will mention briefly is just cash flow,” Hickman said. “The figure of the 88 million from the financial statement comes at the end of June, which if you look at the district cash flow, it’s not our low point. But it’s also not our high point.”
“Over 50% of our revenue in the education fund comes in two large payments in the May-June time frame and in the August-September time frame,” Hickman stated. ” And so the rest of the year in the fall and winter we are actually spending those funds down.”
People also continue to ask about Rivian abatements.
Weikle responded, “Yes the Rivian abatement is expired. So this year we are going to start to receive tax revenue from Rivian. I think that was a little over $750,000 for this year. As Murray just said, half of that will come in this May or June and the other half will come in this fall.”
So let’s say we get $350,000 this spring and the rest this fall,” Weikle continued, We don’t get to earmark all of that to go to the education fund, which is the fund that we need. Instead, that money that comes in has to be shared among all of our funds based on the levy.”
Hickman addressed the Uptown Normal TIF (Tax Increment Financing) saying, “So tax year 2027 is the first year that we would receive any funds from the Uptown Normal TIF. So that’s actually payable then in Spring of 28. Based on current evaluations we believe that will be a $1.5 million increase roughly. But again, just as Dr. Weikle just spoke about with Rivian, that $1.5 million is spread across all the different funds.”
Unit 5 will present another informational meeting at 5:00 pm at Parkside Junior High School on March 8.
