The District 153 school board will conduct a public hearing at 7 p.m. on Aug. 15 to hear from the public on its plans to sell working cash bonds.
The meeting, at James Hart School, will be followed by the regular board meeting at which the school board is expected to start the process to sell bonds that will replenish the school’s check book.
During an April 2016 referendum, voters agreed to a tax levy that will allow the district to sell as much as $9 million in working cash bonds over a seven-year period.
The rate of taxes homeowners are paying will go up for two years, and then revert to current levels.
In 2017 and 2018, a home valued at $100,000 will pay an additional $70 in taxes. For the remaining five years, the rate would fall back to the approximately $275 in referendum-approved taxes those homeowners are paying now.
The school board was forced to ask voters to agree to the bond sale because of falling property values and a drop in state support for local schools.
At the Monday, July 10, board meeting, the school board agreed to publish a notice giving time for a 30-day comment period on a maneuver that will allow the district to change the name on some of its current working cash bonds sold in 2008, in an effort to make room for the new bonds.
“We shorthand call it the resolution of intent. So it’s a resolution of intent to issue funding bonds,” said Linda Matkowski of City Securities Corp., the district’s financial advisor.
It is strictly a legal requirement. The change will not impact property owners.
“It’s simply a switch out of the name of the (bond) issue. You already have this debt on the books,” Matkowski said.