(no audio) (air whooshing) (bright music) - Welcome to "At Issue."

I'm H. Wayne Wilson.

Thank you so much for joining us for a discussion about two important referenda that are on the November ballot in central Illinois.

There are a lot of issues on the ballot, important ones, but we took a look at two that need some explaining, and one of those is in Unit 5 public schools.

They're asking for a tax increase, and to have that discussion, the superintendent of Unit 5 schools is with us.

Dr. Kristen Weikle is here.

Thank you so much for joining us on "At Issue."

- Thank you for having me.

- Before we get into the referendum and the results if it passes, for those that aren't familiar, Unit 5 covers what area?

- Sure, so we're a large school district in McLean County, and we serve the communities of Bloomington, Normal, Towanda, Hudson and Carlock.

We cover more than 214 square miles.

- And a little bit of Woodford County too, I think.

- We do, we have a little bit of Woodford County.

- When you say 214 square miles, that sounds awfully big.

- It is.

It's actually larger than Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Denver, Colorado, in regards to square mileage.

- But not in number of students.

- Correct, yes.

- So let's start by taking a look at the referendum, and if our viewers take a look at the screen and see that the question is rather long.

"Shall the maximum annual tax rate for educational purposes for Normal community unit school district number five, McLane and Woodford Counties, Illinois, be increased and established at 3.6% upon all the taxable property of said school district at the value as equalized or assessed by the Department of Revenue, instead of 2.72%, the present maximum rate, otherwise applicable to the next taxes to be extended for said purposes."

When I said it's a little complex, this question really doesn't answer a whole lot of questions other than raise it to 3.60%.

So how much money are we talking about total?

How much additional income would you have?

- Sure.

So if approved, this would bring in approximately $20 million more into the education fund, which is the fund that pays for teachers, teaching assistance, all of the people employed to help service our students.

- And how much total will you have then in the educational fund from property taxes?

- From property taxes?

Oh gosh, I would have to look at that exact number because it does vary each year.

And part of the complexity with this issue is we wouldn't be applying the increase if approved right away.

- So what year might this be applied?

- Sure.

So we would be applying this in levy year '24, which would be two years from now.

At that time, we have approximately $1 in building bonds that will be paid off.

So what we're asking our community to approve is, once that dollar is paid off in building bonds to reallocate 88 cents permanently to the education fund to put us on more stable financial footing.

- So you're gonna move from working cash bonds to property tax, and it sounds like a decrease eventually.

- Right, so we actually have a approximately $1.58 in building bonds and working bonds combined.

A dollar will be paid off in two years, and that's the building bonds.

And then over the course of the following two years, working cash will be paid off by 25 cents one year and then 28 cents the next year.

So if approved, we wouldn't apply the 88 cent increase to the education fund until the building bonds are paid off.

And overall, the tax rate would indeed be lower for taxpayers.

- So to be clear, when you talk about the working cash bonds, the building bonds, et cetera, you have to pay interest on those?

- Correct.

So as taxpayers, we're already paying for that.

We're paying on the money borrowed plus the interest.

- And the tax increase, we're not talking about interest or anything of that nature.

It's an additional funds to operate the education fund.

- That is what we're working towards, yes.

To provide those crucial services that our community has expressed that they want, that our students deserve.

- Well let's talk about some of those services.

If successful, if the referendum passes, what benefit will we see?

- Sure.

So we actually engaged our community to ask them to help us determine, what is it that's most important to you?

And our community responded by indicating they wanted lower class sizes.

We've had to make several million dollars worth of cuts over the last several years, which have increased class sizes, ranging anywhere from 26 to 35, depending on the class or the level of school.

So we would be looking to reduce class sizes.

We would look to sustain and increase the resources that we provide to students for their academic as well as their behavior, social-emotional growth.

And then looking at ways to improve and increase school safety in all of our buildings.

- The specifics on school safety, what does that mean?

- Sure.

So some of our buildings, one example would be some of our buildings have vestibules that visitors need to be buzzed in.

That allows someone to come into the building with permission like someone's had to buzz them actually in.

But it protects our students where they don't have access to our students until they get through another level of security.

Not all of our buildings have that.

Additionally, adding additional cameras, replacing cameras, different technology that can help us monitor areas that maybe, you know, situations are occurring in, allows us to better protect our students.

- And some specifics on social-emotional learning, you said that we could improve that.

Give me an example of what that would be.

- Sure.

So it can range from people as far as staff members providing counseling, social work services to our students directly, being a liaison between the family and the school.

Sometimes our students who are struggling, their family is also needing some assistance.

And so working with families, students in the school, so that way our students can be set up for academic success.

It can be providing one-on-one interventions for their academics, reteaching some social skills some behavioral skills that somewhere maybe students didn't get or they need some refreshers on.

- So additional staff, we're talking about.

- Very well could be, yes.

- I wanna go back to the finances for just a moment.

And we're talking about negotiations that are coming up for contracts, I believe, this coming year.

- Correct.

- Have you, in your projections, your financial projections, have you considered what those contracts might result in?

- We have.

So all of the projections that we have been sharing with our community include a variety of assumptions, assumptions being increasing cost as far as employees.

So we have our teachers union contract that will be renegotiated this year, as well as our teaching assistance and administrative assistance contract.

So we've made some assumptions as far as salaries, benefit increases, as well as just overall supplies and materials cost.

- Let me stay on finances for one more moment.

And that is the question of, I think, in the past we've always talked about, what's this mean to my property tax bill?

Unit 5 has a certain tax rate and a dollar amount is assigned to that.

And we haven't talked about that yet.

In 2026, I believe it is, you said there's gonna be a slight decrease in the property tax rate.

Can you tell me what the difference might be for a homeowner, an average homeowner?

Have you been able to determine that?

- We have.

So actually in two years, that's when the first bonds will be paid off.

The owner of $180,000 home should see a $400 decrease in their taxes, assuming their home value remains the same as it is today.

And that's not determined by the district.

That's determined by the county assessor.

- And when you say $180,000 home, is that assessed value or actual market value?

- Well, that would be the amount of the tax rate applied to their home value.

- We've talked about improvements if it passes.

What happens if this fails?

- Sure.

So last spring we spent significant time making some difficult decisions where we did have to reduce about $2 million worth of expenses.

Other items that were discussed include, you know, increasing class size, removing academic opportunities from students.

So we offer a wide variety of courses.

We offer some electives or special courses, let's say, at the elementary or junior high that are not required by law.

We may not be able to offer all of those.

It could mean that we may not offer extracurricular or co-curricular activities.

It could result in a building or more being closed.

There are a lot of things that could be, you know, discussed.

But no final decision has been made on any of those.

- Extracurricular activities, that would be clubs, that could be band.

It could be choral activities, could be sports.

- It could be, yes.

So extra co-curricular does include our musical options.

So we have band, orchestra, choir.

We have, you know, all kinds of art, music, PE at the elementary level, and then your traditional maybe sports competition.

So you're, you know, basketball, football, volleyball.

We have e-club sports.

You have student council, chess club.

If there's a club that you can think of, we probably have it.

- [Wayne] You have more than 20 schools?

- Correct, we have 24 schools, pre-K through 12.

- So if this doesn't pass or if it does pass, does it affect schools differently?

Maybe grade school versus high school or location, depending, you've talked about class size, does it depend on the school?

- It could, depending on the number of sections, let's say for a particular grade level at the elementary.

This past year when we cut $2 million worth, I would say there were effects felt across the board, pre-K through 12th grade.

And, you know, in larger class sizes, we had 28 teaching positions that we did not fill, you know, when staff either retired or resigned.

- Real quickly, nothing to do with the referendum.

You mentioned teachers, difficulty in filling slots.

- Yes, yes.

- One more issue.

This is a very complex question, and there is an opportunity for anybody to find out more.

When will that occur?

- Right, so we have a virtual online presentation.

October 25th.

More information can be found on the Unit 5 website.

Individuals can watch a prerecorded message.

They can submit questions that they want answered.

There really are a variety of opportunities that our community can become informed.

- And that Unit 5 website is?

- www.unit5.org.

- [Wayne] The numeral five?

- That's correct, yes.

- Dot org, okay.

Dr. Kristen Weikle, thank you so much for joining us on "At Issue" and explaining this referendum.

- Thank you.

- And we'll be back in just a moment.

We're going to take a look at an advisory referendum about redistricting.

It's an only a small area that has the vote, but redistricting is a very important issue.

In just a moment.

The second referendum we'll discuss on the program is equally complex, maybe even more complex than the Unit 5 school district referendum.

It involves redistricting, or some people will refer to it as a gerrymander question, but to have that conversation, Brad McMillan is here.

Brad may know more about redistricting efforts than anybody else in the state of Illinois.

But his role actually is he's the executive director at the Bradley University Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service.

Thank you for joining us on that issue.

- Good to be here, H. - I wanna talk about the referendum, but first to set the tone, let's talk about the history of redistricting efforts.

Let's start with how are political districts, and we're talking congressional and legislative, how are districts drawn and when are they drawn currently?

- Yeah, so we just went through the 2020 census.

Every 10 years there's a census done where the population is counted, and that's when redistricting kicks in because each state legislative district and each congressional district are supposed to be equal in population.

And so when population changes and people move from one state to the next, then you have to redraw the legislative boundaries, both state legislative boundaries and congressional federal legislative boundaries.

And in Illinois, we actually lost a congressional seat because of us not keeping up population-wise with other states in the country.

- So that leads to, who is drawing the maps?

Once the numbers are there, who's drawing the maps?

- Well, in Illinois, it's the Illinois General Assembly that by our constitution draws the state legislative maps and the congressional maps.

And so once again, they did it behind closed doors without public input.

They did it at the 11th hour.

This year, you even had the situation where the census numbers were not yet released, and they drew maps even before the the actual numbers were in place.

It was a complete mess.

So it's not a pretty process in Illinois.

- But the process as it was done was legal.

- Yeah, it's currently in the Illinois constitution.

And so, you know, what many citizens have been trying to do in Illinois for at least 12 years now is try to reform that system.

Other states like California, Arizona, Michigan, Ohio have reformed their redistricting process and have formed independent commissions with full public transparency, drawing the maps.

And that's what many people have been working on in Illinois for quite some time.

- You mentioned that the districts should be similar in size population-wise, but isn't there a word that says they should be compact, or do I?

- Compact and contiguous?

Exactly.

And you know, in states where they draw the maps fairly, it leads to more competition in the political system.

It leads to more accountability.

Bottom line, it leads to better government.

And that's why so many people have been working on trying to get redistricting reform done in Illinois.

- But right now, what we have is, and people use the gerrymander term, after a Massachusetts legislator from 200 years ago named Elbridge Gerry.

But gerrymandering is selecting candidates in advance of the election sometimes?

- Well, what they do is, whatever political party's in power, and both Democrats and Republicans, depending on who's in power, have done this.

They go block by block and look at voter history and try to draw these districts in a way that will benefit their political interests.

So they're gonna draw a district that is 65% leaning Democrat or a 65% leaning Republican, and they can actually go street by street behind closed doors.

And the reason they call it gerrymandered is because these districts end up looking really oddly shaped because it's not based on keeping communities whole, keeping county boundaries whole.

It really is drawn in a way just to connect political dots for political power.

- So that leads us to the referendum.

One more question before we talk about the specifics of this, but it's an effort to advisory, mind you, it's an advisory referendum, but it's an effort to have compact districts and to involve more citizens actually seeking office?

- Well, what with the referendum actually says, it's just for the city of Peoria, and what it does, it's an advisory referendum to establish an independent commission of citizens to draw the state and federal legislative districts in Illinois.

So other states like California, Arizona, Michigan have turned over the redistricting process to an independent commission of citizens that conduct all of their business in open meetings, and they get feedback from citizens, and they try to draw these districts fairly and in an open way.

- What might an independent Citizens commission look like?

And, I know, I don't want you to predict the future, but what, some examples of how are these commissions structured?

- Yeah, so the Fair Maps amendment in Illinois that was proposed both by citizen petition, constitutional amendment drives and then through legislative constitutional amendments, it established an independent commission based on the model that we saw in California.

So it was made up of a certain number of citizens that had a democratic voting history, a certain number of citizens who had a Republican voting history and a certain number of citizens who had an independent voting history.

And geographically, they were to come from throughout the state.

There was also diversity that was included in that.

In California, they've done this very successfully where after the 2010 census, an independent commission has been drawing the state legislative districts and the congressional districts.

- So let me read the referendum.

"Should the state of Illinois adopt an independent citizens commission for the federal and state redistricting process that would be guided by principles established in Fair Maps initiatives."

Fair Maps initiatives is referencing the past efforts?

- Yes, I believe it is, yes.

- And this is advisory in nature?

- Yes, it's advisory.

And so, you know, citizens, you know, for themselves, you know, need to figure out whether this is something that they support or they don't support.

How an advisory referendum works is, once the votes are totaled, whatever the result is, could be used as an advocacy tool with your state legislators moving forward.

- You mentioned earlier that the city of Peoria is where this will take place.

It's technically the township of the city of Peoria because the city council acts as the board of trustees for the township.

So citizens brought a petition to the township annual meeting?

- Yeah, so Sheldon Shafer, who's been very active politically in central Illinois for many years, you know, actually got signatures from, you know, a diverse group of Peoria township citizens, and then went through the process to get the referendum on the ballot.

- And so they submitted at the annual meeting, and then the city council, the township board of trustees, which is the city council, then had to approve it.

- Correct.

- And then they sent that to the election board.

- Exactly.

- To put it on the ballot.

- And that's how it got on the ballot.

- So this has no weight officially.

- Correct.

It won't change the process, in and of itself.

An advisory referendum is meant, you know, to test the temperature of the citizens on a particular issue.

And so that's what this referendum will do.

- What are the ways that you can change the way redistricting is done in Illinois?

- So the redistricting process in Illinois is embedded in the 1970 Illinois constitution.

And the only way you can change it, there's two ways, is either through a citizen petition drive, which was attempted three times in Illinois, or through a legislative constitutional amendment where you get enough of the members of the Senate and the House in the Illinois General Assembly to support putting a legislative constitutional amendment on the ballot.

In both instances, it goes to the voters.

Whether it's a citizen petition drive or whether it's a legislative constitutional amendment, it would ultimately be decided by the citizens of the state of Illinois.

- Knowing that, I find it interesting that a township vote, and there are more than 1,400 townships in the state of Illinois, a township vote on an issue that is set in the 1970 Illinois state constitution is advisory.

But can it have an impact?

- I think it can.

You know, in California, it took them several decades and five attempts to finally get meaningful redistricting reform across the finish line.

A lot of it is building coalitions and building momentum and keeping the momentum or the issue in front of the voters.

So I do think it can have an impact.

- It might lead to Fair Maps, resurrecting its effort?

- Possibly, you know?

I know there's discussions trying to figure out what our next steps are in Illinois.

I think there still is passion and energy to keep up the fight to try to make this eventually happen.

Again, it's all about trying to bring better government and fair, more competitive elections to the state of Illinois.

It's an important goal, and it's worth the effort to keep trying it.

- Is redistricting more important in primaries than the general election, possibly?

- I think it's- - Or equally important?

- I think it's equally important because, you know, if districts aren't drawn fairly, it's a disincentive both in the primary and in the general election of throwing your hat in the ring and getting involved in the political process.

If the system's rigged, it's just not, the political system is not one that people want to jump into.

- With that, the town of the city of Peoria will have an advisory referendum on the ballot come November.

Brad McMillan of Bradley University, thank you for the explanation.

- Glad to be here, H. - Next time on "At Issue," actually, the next two times on "At Issue," we're going to be talking about French influence early in the history of Illinois.

Illinois had a lot of French influence from about 1673 to 1765.

We'll be reviewing that and talk about an effort to create a French heritage corridor on the next "At issue."

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