Tomorrow night, 7pm, at the District Admin building, 335 W. Wilson, the Batavia School Board has an agenda packed with items you may be interested in.
Link: https://go.boarddocs.com/il/bps101/Board.nsf/Public

Of special note:

5.7 School Report Card

6.6 Capital Projects Plan Report

7.1 Approve Purchase of a Delivery Truck

7.2 Approve Intergovernmental Agreement with the City of Aurora 

Please see the agenda items on the district website. 

The Intergovernmental Agreement is in regard to the proposed TIF (Tax Increment Financing) District that would host the Aurora Casino. The casino was in a TIF District in Aurora for 30 years, and now that the Aurora school district would finally start getting their property taxes from the casino, the casino wants to move and get MORE TIF money by moving into a new TIF in the Batavia school district (still city of Aurora). The proposed agreement calls for 10% of the TIF taxes to be set aside (instead of 100%) for the various taxing bodies, of which Batavia School District would get around $300,000/yr (instead of $3,000,000/yr). The rest is given as kickbacks to the casino developer. For at least 23 years. Maybe 35 years. Now look at the Capital Projects needs. Do you think the School District is getting a good deal with this TIF?

How does a TIF District work? Lines are drawn to create a district for development. The value of the property in the district before development is frozen. The taxes the school district and all the other taxing bodies will receive for the next 23 or more years is based on that frozen value. Any gain in taxes —the increment— from increased property value from development is taken from the taxing bodies and kept for use only within the TIF district, which in this case, since the casino will be the only property in the district, means for the benefit of the casino developer. The casino will be taking money from the schools, the police, the library, etc. for at least 23 years. The City of Aurora wants BPS101 to agree to this by throwing them some crumbs: Here, we’ll give you $300k/yr. Take it and keep your mouth shut (no bad-mouthing the casino project—it’s in the agreement). We’re being generous—we could give you nothing. Since we are buying up the properties in the TIF, you’ll get $0 in taxes if we don’t develop it.

And in 30 years, the casino can move again into a NEW TIF district, and the Batavia schools will have been cheated out of $70+ million that could have gone toward Capital Projects. It happened to Aurora school district; it can happen to Batavia.

More comments: compare the School Report Card (follow the link in the agenda item) to the report cards of Geneva and St. Charles.

Regarding the truck—With all the other needs, is this a need or a want?

If you want to comment at the meeting, be sure to get there before 7pm to fill out a slip to comment during Public Comments near the beginning of the meeting. Don’t be late or they won’t take your slip. You have 3 minutes to talk.

If you can’t make the meeting and want to comment in writing, email the Board at https://www.bps101.net/board/contact-the-board/.