This section provides responses to frequently asked questions. Information will be added as administration becomes aware of district-related questions that are circulation in the community.

Budget Preparation

What is the budget philosophy of the School Board of The Winnetka Public Schools?

Stated in the opening of our Annual Budget Document and used as a guideline throughout the budget process, the goal of the District 36 School Board is "to present a budget that represents fiscal constraint balanced with the goal of maintaining a high quality program." This Board, like others before it, also supports the long-standing practice in Winnetka of maintaining a minimum level of ending fund balances (i.e., money held in reserve from one year to the next) so that taxpayers may keep their own resources as long as possible.

How do members of the School Board and Administration develop the Long-Range Plan?

The School Board and administration engage in Long-Range Planning on a continuous basis. As part of the annual budgeting process, all expenses and revenues are projected for five years. The key drivers of the Plan are as follows:

• Enrollment projections
• Staffing (predicated on enrollment projections and programmatic needs)
• Projected salary and benefit increases
• Analysis of short term and long-term facility needs
• Technology needs
• State and federal mandates
• Expected revenues from the state and federal governments
• Special education needs
• Cost efficiencies (wherever possible)
• Economic and financial environment
• Research on national trends

In a tax cap environment, this process enables the Board to analyze trends in spending, potential ending fund balances, and the projected date of the next referendum. The annual budgeting process is then guided by the long-range document. These long and short-term projections enable the District to be proactive and add or reduce staffing incrementally as changes occur, thereby stabilizing the funding of programs over time. The sporadic addition and deletion of programs, as experienced in some school districts, results in unwieldy start-up, training and severance costs and is a poor use of educational and financial resources over time.

How do members of the School Board and Administration develop the Annual Budget?

The purpose of The Winnetka Public Schools is clear: to provide the best possible educational experience for each of our students as they pass through our schools from kindergarten through grade eight. This clarity is more carefully defined in a document entitled Winnetka: A Community of Learners which serves as a road map. First prepared in 1985 and updated in 1999, this was written with input from staff, members of the School Board, parents, and the community-at-large. Having this strong philosophical statement in writing enables staff and members of the Winnetka School Board to focus their energies and work collaboratively toward the same aim.

The School Board engages in an on-going process of monitoring the spending of the District and planning for future years. The process begins by placing the current needs in the context of a Long-Range Plan that details revenues, expenditures, and balances for the next five years. After an analysis of the needs of the District, the budget for the upcoming year is prepared. Referendum monies are spent frugally with the objective of a three-to-five year span between referenda.

The close scrutiny of spending and planning takes place at the regularly scheduled open meetings of the School Board. Citizens are encouraged to attend and provide feedback. The following is a rough outline of the process that is followed each year.

October-November - Enrollment projections and staffing implications presented
December - Long-Range Plan presented and discussed
January - Board authorizes the preparation of the Annual Budget
February - Board discusses assumptions including class sizes and major cost drivers; discusses long-range projections
March - Board reviews and confirms assumptions
April - Board discusses First Draft of the Budget
May - Board reviews Tentative Budget (Second draft)
June - Board approves Tentative Budget
June-September - Tentative Budget on Display in Public Library, Schools, and website
September - Public Hearing on Budget and final adoption
October - Discussion of Tax Levy
November - Long-Range Plan revised according to actual figures from audit
December - Tax Levy adopted and authorized for filing with County Clerk

Have enrollment projections been useful?

Public school enrollments have historically followed population cycles and may also be affected by such factors as the economy, new/expanded home construction and shifts from private school enrollments.

The following graph illustrates our enrollment and projections.

District 36 utilizes enrollment projections prepared by Dr. John Kasarda, professor at the University of North Carolina, in its Long-Range Planning to provide a general idea of future facility and staffing needs. Enrollment is projected for 10 years into the future.

The District is provided with three different sets of figures:

• those that represent the absolute minimum number of students that may be anticipated
• those that represent the most likely number of students to be expected
• the absolute maximum number of students that can possibly be foreseen

Our actual enrollments in District 36 have been for the most part higher than the B figures and closer to C. In addition to this, our relatively small number of students can create what appear to be large swings in projections. We have been able to work with this discrepancy because we use additional data such as a parent-performed census of students, records of the number of school District visitors interested in moving to Winnetka, and actual early enrollments of new students.

What are the enrollment projections and class size objectives?

The latest enrollments projections provided by our demographer, Dr. Kasarda, are as follows:

The School Board sets 25 as a maximum class size. We watch the enrollments very closely throughout the school year and in April determine the number of sections needed at each grade level in each building for the next school year.

Our teachers’ ability to implement our philosophy of teaching to the individual child has been and always will be dependent on maintaining lower class sizes. We expect our teachers to know and understand each child’s learning style and interests and to use this information to best facilitate each student's learning. We also expect our teachers to involve parents in the process in a meaningful way. All of this takes a great deal of time for each child, but pays tremendous dividends in terms of developing a high level of skill, a love of learning, and a student who is committed to giving his or her gifts back to society.

Revenues and Expenditures

What are the sources of funding for the schools?

Sources of funding for The Winnetka Public School com from local property taxes, the State of Illinois, the Federal government, and other local funding.

The overwhelming proportion of funds comes from local taxpayer dollars with a small amount coming from state and federal taxes. The "other" category includes parent fees for Suzuki music instruction, Adventures in Learning summer programs, the Before- and After-School care program, transportation, corporate personal property replacement taxes, earnings on investments, and rental fees.

What additional sources of revenue has the Board considered?

The School Board constantly searches for additional sources of revenue beyond local taxes and state and federal funding. At present, nearly $ 1.5 million is received annually from alternative sources. These sources - school parents and groups outside the school system - are highlighted below.

Parent-Based Sources

Program fees and PTA donations funded by parents account for roughly $1.2 million of the $1.5 million mentioned above.

The Board reviews individual program costs annually and increases the amount collected from fees on a regular basis. The goal is to increase fees whenever possible to a self-funding level for school programs such as Adventures in Learning, Suzuki music, facility usage, field trips, transportation, lunchroom supervision and after-school sports. District 36 PTOs have raised funds and generously donated items to the schools. Examples include playground renovations, pianos, landscaping, and technology.

External Sources

There are three major external sources of funding that the School Board has considered. Two of them (The Winnetka Public Schools Foundation and federal and state grants) have proven to be important assets. The third, commercial advertising, was found to have potential detrimental impact on our students' education.

The largest source of externally raised funds is the Winnetka Public Schools Foundation. This private group annually provides about $100,000 of enrichment funding to the District. The Foundation's mission is to fund innovative learning opportunities for both teachers and students to ensure the highest standards in the community's schools. This funding has covered initiatives that the schools could not afford in this tax cap era such as science and math facilitators, teacher research, homework club, artist-in-residence programs, and The Skokie School literary magazine.

Our administrators have been diligent about writing grants that support the District budget whenever we are eligible. As federal and state grant money becomes more competitive and focused on lower-income districts, our grant funding has decreased over the years.

The School Board and administration have chosen not to seek commercial funding because the commitments we would have had to make would detract from our core educational philosophy. Many commercial programs (book covers, in-school TV and signage, product sponsored classroom materials) expect time from our students to view advertising, sample products, and complete surveys. In addition to being true to the District's philosophy, this decision is consistent with recent Winnetka Village Caucus feedback that indicated the community felt corporate sponsorship was not an appropriate way to increase District 36 revenues.

How is the money spent?

The largest expense by far is salaries and benefits. This is true of all school districts.

The expenses for The Winnetka Public Schools District 36 are divided into five categories: Salaries and Benefits, Contracted Services, Supplies/Materials, Capital Outlay, and Other.

Salaries

This expense covers the salaries for teachers, administrators, custodians and maintenance, technology specialists, associates, secretaries, and registered nurses. This represents approximately 65% of the overall expenses of the entire budget.

Benefits

Benefits cover health insurance, life insurance, and retirement/social security for our employees. This represents approximately 8% of the overall expenses. There is significant savings in this category by joining a larger insurance cooperative that will hold down our cost increases.

Contracted Services

Contracted Services include work that is done on our facilities by outside vendors and any outside consultants. These expenses represent approximately 8% of our overall costs. Our in-house maintenance staff saves approximately $20,000-$50,000 annually by performing the majority of our facility upkeep.

Capital Outlay

Capital Outlay includes work done on facilities, equipment such as computers, trucks, telephone systems, and furniture such as desks, tables, file cabinets, lockers, etc. Costs in this area represent approximately 2% of the total budget and is contained by leasing our computers rather than purchasing them.

Supplies

Supplies include supplies for the classroom such as maps, library books, materials for art, music, physical education, industrial arts, and other consumable educational supplies. It also includes any supplies necessary for administration and maintenance departments. This overall category has been held to a 3% or 4% increase over the last several years. Savings have been affected by purchasing collaboratively whenever possible.

Other

This category includes tuitions for out-of-district students, costs for our special education cooperative and testing. 40% of the expenses in this category go to support educating students whose needs we cannot meet within our District. This category is controlled by our membership in a special education cooperative (NSSED) that provides the most cost effective services to our students with significant special needs working jointly with approximately 20 other school districts.

The Administration and members of the School Board carefully track expenses in all categories over time. We analyze our increases/decreases in each spending category to determine that spending is appropriately focused on our priorities. A rule of thumb that can be used to compare actual spending to expected spending is to compare the percent increase with the total of increased enrollments and the Consumer Price Index (CPI). If expenses are greater, the area is analyzed more closely for potential savings.

Several conclusions can be drawn by analyzing expenditures over time:

Salaries and Benefits

• The largest percentage increase in any of our categories has been in health insurance costs, where we have seen a compounded average increase of approximately 30%. This has included the increased cost of benefits as well as an increase in staffing over the years. During this time we have controlled costs to the best of our ability through cooperative purchasing and have recently moved to a larger co-op to keep our costs as low as possible. This increase is comparable to those of other districts and businesses.
• The cost for administration and classroom instruction are at the expected level. The compounded average increase is around 5%, and includes annual increases in salaries as well as increase staffing due to increased enrollment. During this time administration staffing has stayed level while the scope of work has increased.
• The increase in support staff represents a larger percentage than expected because of the increased number of teacher associates hired to assist in serving our students with special needs.

Other Operating Expenses

• The expenditures for supplies and contracted services are actually lower than expected because of our cost containments in these areas.
• The category "Other" is higher than other categories because of tuitions for out-of-district students with special needs that we are unable to service.

Capital Expenditures

• This category is not expected to be consistent from year to year because it encompasses our construction work.

Facilities

• Our aging facilities represent a major long-term investment for the District. We carefully track both annual maintenance expenses and capital additions.

How do the School Board and Administration monitor spending on a regular basis?

The Administration closely scrutinizes spending during the year through an expenditure pre-approval process. In addition, spending is routinely placed on hold at times throughout the year to allow the School Board and Administration to assess the status of funds in each category.

The members of the School Board receive a monthly statement that includes the percentage of expended funds in each category and a comparison of projected costs from year to year. These statements enable them to track costs as well as analyze expenses.

Spending Management

How is the District looking to innovation and cost containment to improve education while reducing costs?

Cost Containment

The School Board and Administration have placed a strong emphasis on cost containment. Following are some of the methods that have been used:

• Maintenance of Facilities – The District has developed an in-house maintenance program for mechanical, carpentry, locksmith, and annual electrical work. In addition, the School Board has worked closely with our custodians to craft a plan that represents a savings of $750,000 over the next five years.
• Energy Savings – The District conducted an energy audit that resulted in a state grant that paid for energy efficient lighting fixtures, a computerized mechanical system to manage energy usage in the schools, and energy efficient windows in all buildings.
• Supplies – Fortunately, the District’s philosophy encourages the use of teacher-made materials rather than costly textbooks. Nonetheless, the Administration has exercised close scrutiny over the use of supplies, as their costs have increased an average 3.5% over the last 10 years. The average cost of paper and maps has increased at an even faster pace. Much of this savings is because the District uses an in-house Publications center to copy, collate, and bind materials.
• Medicaid – Over the last several years, staff members completed a great deal of paperwork to bring the District approximately $35,000 in Medicaid funds that we had not captured previously. These were applied to our special education budget.
• Staffing - During the first few years of tax caps, staffing was held constant while enrollments rose. This meant larger class sizes and burdensome schedules for our teachers in art, music, physical education, and computers. We continue to keep a very close watch on staffing. Only staffing that is absolutely necessary to maintain continuity in the quality of the educational program is added each year. When we are hiring, we find that our longstanding reputation for academic excellence attracts a talented pool of teachers. In addition, we have been fortunate that the Winnetka Public Schools Foundation has supported our science facilitators’ salaries and benefits for four years and is currently supporting our math facilitator and some of our technology support staff. To avoid the hiring of new administrative staff, we have reorganized the administrative team and increased their duties.
• Development of a New Salary Schedule System – During the last negotiations process our teachers’ salary steps were reformatted in a way that enables us to budget more predictably for the future and eliminate inequities among the teachers.
• Cooperative Purchasing – Our Business Manager actively pursues cost comparisons and cooperative purchasing, when it is cost effective, for cleaning supplies, paper, gas, liability and workmen’s compensation.
• Competitive Health Insurance – We have belonged to an insurance cooperative that has been very aggressive in pursuing the best and most cost effective program for our staff. Recently we have moved to a larger group that will help keep our premiums to a minimum over the next few years. Every effort is being made to do this with minimum disruption of service for our staff members. Despite the co-op's efforts, health insurance costs for school employees, as in every business, are increasing at a double-digit rate.
• Northern Suburban Special Education District (NSSED) - We belong to a special education cooperative that enables us to educate students who have special education needs that we are unable to meet in the District. Working with approximately 20 other districts, we are able to send our students to classes within other schools in the cooperative. This is both cost effective and beneficial to the students and their families, because the students are able to live at home instead of having to travel great distances and live away from home.
• Telephone – We have restructured and changed our vendor relationships to achieve large cost savings. We are in are in constant review of our communications systems.
• Technology Leasing – An extensive study by a District technology task force determined that it is much more cost effective to lease our technology equipment than to purchase it. We have done so as a part of a long-range plan that replaces equipment on a regular basis. The average life of a computer in industry is expected to be between 18 and 24 months; we use ours for four to five years on the network and two additional years as stand-alone computing stations.
• Legislative Advocacy – This is a time of cutbacks that are affecting our schools at both the state and federal levels. Members of the School Board and Administration have been very actively involved in meeting with our legislators on a regular basis to educate them about our needs in Winnetka.
• Grants – As mentioned previously, our staff has been aggressively pursuing grants whenever possible.
• Fees - We have a practice of charging fees for certain programs so that they can be self-sustaining. These programs include Adventures in Learning summer program, Suzuki music instruction, our lunchroom program, field trips, and the use of facilities.

Innovation

Educational innovation in Winnetka has always started at the classroom level. Our outstanding teachers’ creativity and willingness to give of themselves professionally provide an extraordinary educational experience for our children.

A broad range of innovative teacher initiatives have been funded through the Winnetka Public Schools Foundation. Teachers have the opportunity to create unique projects that enhance the classroom experience without the need for additional taxpayer funding. Examples include the development of a financial investment lesson unit, the creation of a television studio at Hubbard Woods that provides a morning news broadcast daily, and the production of an original opera at Greeley School by the students.

Innovation continues at the District level as well. Just a few examples are:

• Teacher-developed classroom materials. This is extremely cost effective when compared to ordering textbook series for classrooms.
• Extensive workshops for our teachers provided at no cost by the Urban-Suburban Northwestern Consortium. This is a collaboration of urban and suburban schools that we have helped develop over the years.
• An innovative new teacher orientation program that introduces our teachers to the philosophy of the district, and teaching strategies. Recognized as exemplary by the State Department of Education, this program and other staff development opportunities through our in-house Winnetka Teachers’ Institute have been instrumental in recruiting and retaining the best and brightest teachers. As with other enterprises, a lack of turnover in our staff has been highly cost-effective for the district.
• In-house classroom strategies training. Through the Winnetka Public Schools Foundation, our teachers have produced their own videos to illustrate effective classroom strategies for their colleagues. This has saved us a tremendous amount of staff development money.

What effect do state and federal programs haveon our school’s budget?

Both the Illinois Board of Education (ISBE) and the federal government impose mandates on our schools that are unfunded. Examples at the state level include payments to retirement systems, mandatory fingerprinting of all new employees, placements of defibrillators in all schools, statewide testing, and audits in specific and costly formats. Examples at the federal level are testing at every grade level, special education regulations that require costly paperwork, and workmen’s compensation and liability coverage.

Our average annual cost of unfunded mandates is over $1 million a year.

What is our special education spending, and how does this compare to neighboring districts?

Special Education expenses make up 13% of the District’s total expenditures and 17% of the expenses in the education fund. These costs cover special education teachers, school psychologists, speech and language pathologists, social work services, reading support specialists, and payment to the Northern Suburban Special Education District for students receiving specialized services. These students require programs more appropriately and cost effectively served by our special education cooperative.

Winnetka serves approximately 15% to 18% of our students who have Individualized Educational Plans. The District provides services from specialists in the areas of learning disabilities and special education, social workers, speech and language specialists, psychologists, and nurses. This is comparable to surrounding North Shore communities and fluctuates annually based on the population enrolled.

What is the cost of maintaining our school buildings?

Winnetka traditionally has taken great pride in its historic buildings. Philosophically, we believe strongly in maintaining our neighborhood schools. Research shows – and tradition has proven in Winnetka – that students achieve better in small schools. There are more opportunities for meaningful relationships with adults and for these relationships to be consistent over time. Moreover, the neighborhood schools support a sense of being part of a community. Even apart from our deep philosophical commitment, there is a compelling practical reason to keep our existing neighborhood schools: Winnetka is land-locked and there is no available land for a new school.

Thus, the School Board has the task of maintaining our historic buildings – cherished as they are by our citizens, but expensive to keep in good repair. Below are the ages of each building in the District.

Crow Island School - 70 years old
Greeley School - 96 years old
Hubbard Woods School - 94 years old
The Skokie School- 88 years old
Carleton Washburne School - 40 years old

Before tax caps were implemented, the School Board had the ability to issue Life-Safety bonds to supplement the District budget for larger facility expenses, such as asbestos abatement and roof repairs. While each year there was about $100,000 in the budget for painting, minor repairs, and other small maintenance issues, the bonds were necessary for the larger projects. Whenever the District budget was especially tight, facility repairs were deferred.

How do our teacher salaries and benefits compare to those of neighboring districts?

It is difficult to compare teacher salaries from district to district because of the manner in which teacher salaries are determined. Upon entry to a school district, teachers are placed on a step in a salary schedule dependent on the teacher’s years of experience. Each district has a different method for placing incoming teachers on a particular step, so it is difficult to compare teachers with similar experience across districts. Typically, after each additional year of experience, a teacher moves to the next step; the percentage of salary increase from step to step varies from district to district. A better starting point for comparison is the average teacher salary published every year in the Illinois State Report Card, a document designed to provide parents and communities with information about Illinois schools.

To make an informed comparison, one also needs to look at the major drivers that affect average salary, i.e., years of experience and degrees earned. The higher the number of years of experience, the higher the teacher is placed on the salary step. Teachers with a master’s degree are paid on a higher step schedule than those with a bachelor’s degree.

What are the status and history of the teacher contract?

The teachers negotiate with the School Board periodically to establish their future salaries. The time between negotiations is determined by the mutually agreed upon length of the contract (anywhere from one to five years, with three years being the average). We are currently in a contract expiring in August 2013.

During the data-driven negotiations process, the School Board and the teachers spent over 100 hours jointly studying market compensation and working conditions in 14 neighboring districts as well as the ongoing financial limitations posed by tax caps. Both the teachers’ needs for competitive compensation and the District’s limited financial resources are carefully considered during this process.

How has District 36 spending changed over the last 10 years?

There have been four major changes in spending over the last fifteen years.

The first has been a curtailment of costs whenever possible. All items in the budget are examined annually and spending is monitored carefully throughout the year. Cost containment is a high priority of the Administrative Team and the members of the School Board.

The second has been a shift to a greater percentage of the spending on facilities as we have tried to address the deferred maintenance of our aging buildings. This has been accomplished through the careful spending of money from referenda from 1999, 2000, 2003, and 2007.

The third was the required additional staffing necessary for the opening of The Skokie School in the areas of administration, special education, and specialists in such areas as library, art, music, kinetic wellness, and computer education.

The fourth area in which spending has changed has been technology. With increased use of computers in our society, it has been essential to provide our students with a strong education in this area. Computers have become invaluable tools for access to information, presentation, analysis of data, etc., in our schools.

How should the community evaluate the School Board's effectiveness in developing the budget?

The School Board and administration encourage the community to be actively involved in learning about development of The Winnetka Public Schools budget, in making suggestions for possible areas of cost containment, and in evaluating the effectiveness of the School Board and administration in developing the budget.

In keeping with the philosophy of the School Board "to present a budget that represents fiscal constraint balanced with the goal of maintaining a high quality program," the evaluation must feature two large components. One is the evaluation of the ability of the Board to exercise fiscal constraint, and the other is to evaluate the Board’s ability to maintain a high quality program. Information about both of these areas can be found in publications such as the Winnetka Talk, the local Pioneer Press newspaper; Learners, the District’s newsletter about curriculum, teaching, activities, and events in the schools; and Board Update, a newsletter about School Board actions. Winnetkans also may learn more by attending School Board meetings, visiting the website, and talking with students who attend The Winnetka Public Schools and their parents.

Fiscal Constraint

We have found the following indicators could be useful to citizens evaluating the effectiveness of District 36 spending are:

• Cost containment efforts
• Ability to plan for the longer term and predict timing of referenda
• The length of time between referenda
• The openness and accessibility of Board members to community’s input and concerns
• The clarity of explanations for expenses and revenues, as well as consistency between expenses, enrollment, and programmatic changes
• Ability to explain the budget and where the money is spent

Another way to judge the Board’s effectiveness with budget and the overall quality of the educational program is the continued increase in home sales. Many families move to Winnetka for the schools, which keeps home selling prices high.

What are tax caps?

The State legislature instituted tax caps for Cook County in 1995 to give voters greater control over their taxes and the taxing entities in their communities. They limit the District’s annual increase in revenue from property taxes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or 5%, whichever is less. The recent CPI history has been as follows:

1997 - 1.7%
1998 - 1.6%
1999 - 2.7%
2000 - 3.4%
2001 - 1.6%
2002 - 2.4%
2003 - 1.9%
2004 - 3.3%
2005 - 3.4%
2006 - 2.5%
2007 - 4.1%
2008 - 0.1%

While property taxes from new construction, new homes built in the place of teardowns, and home additions are added to the capped amount, this land-locked District receives only a small amount of incremental revenue from these sources over the cap.

Information about Tax Caps

Why does the school District have to go to referendum and request operating tax rate increases periodically?

Under tax caps, the schools’ revenue increases are basically tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the cost of certain consumer goods. Unfortunately, most of this index’s components (e.g., food, clothing, shelter costs) have no bearing on the primary costs of running a school district, as schools are salary-driven organizations.

Simply put, the cost of operating school districts bears little relationship to the CPI measurement that caps revenues.

Furthermore, tax caps do not account for changes in enrollment. Increases in enrollment greatly exacerbate the cost pressures faced by the District with a capped revenue stream.

Instead of cutting programs and/or increasing class sizes, the School Board has chosen to go to the voters periodically and ask for referendum increases in the operating tax rate. These voter approved increases in spending have sustained Winnetka’s educational excellence, with current spending per pupil staying in line with that of other New Trier sender districts:

In a tax cap environment, how do various local taxing bodies (New Trier, Park District, Village, and Library) work together? Is anyone watching our overall tax increases?

Administrative Heads and the Board Presidents of New Trier High School, The Winnetka Public Schools (K-8), The Village, The New Trier Township, The Park District, and Library have quarterly, Intergovernmental Meetings to devise strategies for cost effective delivery of services.

The Superintendent of Schools, Village Manager, and Director of Parks and Recreations are responsible for implementing these cost-effective strategies. Examples include:

• Park District uses District 36 buildings for sports and after school programs and in return provides landscaping and snow plowing for the School District.
• Park District and School District collaboratively run a cost effective After School Program.
• Joint purchasing of services such as asphalt and landscaping provides for reduced use of taxpayer dollars.

Why under tax caps does my tax bill show the amount that I am paying for District 36 is growing faster than the CPI?

The term tax caps can be confusing. "Tax caps" limit the total dollars The Winnetka Public Schools can receive from the community in property taxes. The caps do not "cap" individual tax bills. Individual taxpayers can have varied experiences.

It helps to think of the total taxes that the schools are permitted to collect as the property tax "pie" and as individual tax bills as pieces of that "pie".

The value of some properties and neighborhoods are increasing more rapidly than others, which is reflected in the Cook County triennial tax reassessment. The reassessment does not increase the size of the total tax "pie"; that is, total dollars coming to the schools – but those whose homes have larger increases in assessed value take on a larger portion of the property tax "pie."

The allocation of taxes among property owners is also affected by property tax appeals through the Cook County Assessor’s office or the Circuit Court System. When property owners successfully appeal their assessment and reduce their taxes, in effect reducing their share of the "pie", the proportional size increases for the other property owners.

Home additions, improvements and sale price add to a property’s assessed valuation, but it can take several years for the increase to show up in a tax bill.

The schools do not receive extra gains due to natural appreciation in property values or reassessment. The amount of revenue that District 36 receives is predetermined by tax caps.

Citizen Participation

What can I do to make my voice heard about budget decisions facing the schools?

The School Board encourages all Winnetka residents to participate in the decision-making process on the annual budget and other issues before the School Board.

There are many ways to participate:

• Attend a School Board meeting. A special time is designated at each meeting for Public Participation. School Board meetings are always open to the public. They are generally held on the fourth Tuesday of the month at 7:15 P.M. and rotate among the schools. The location, time, and agenda are posted in the library, the schools, and on the website. Budget preparation takes place at the meetings from October through August and in June a tentative Budget is made available for inspection over the summer in the library and on the District website. There is an Annual Budget Hearing in September that is advertised in the Pioneer Press and explicitly held for the purpose of gathering input from residents about the budget.
• Call or write a letter to one or all of the School Board members and the Superintendent of Schools.
• Work with the Village Caucus by attending the annual Caucus Town Meeting and completing the Caucus Survey.

Why is taxpayer support for the schools important to everyone in the village?

Taxpayer support maintains the quality of education for our children, so that our schools can continue to challenge them to become productive, healthy adults who contribute to society.

Citizen support for education has always been a core value of Winnetka.

• Civic Pride – Winnetka residents have always taken great pride in the fact that the school district has maintained a strong local, national, and international reputation.
• Perpetuation of an Informed Citizenry - Public schools were founded in the 1600s to support the creation of an informed citizenry. The need for an informed citizenry continues to span several generations, but is predicated on teaching democratic principles and values of a civilized society to its newest members. Public schools, open to all children, provide a common base of information and expectations that allows individuals and our society as a whole to function and thrive.
• Investment in the Next Generation – Our students graduate to attend New Trier and numerous colleges and universities. As adults, they play significant leadership roles in business, politics, medicine, etc.
• Good School Reputation - Parents continue to move to Winnetka for the schools. In a Village of Winnetka Comprehensive Survey done in 1998, 71 % of Winnetkan's say they moved here primarily for the school system.
• Stable Real Estate Values - The constant demand for housing has supported an extraordinary rise in real estate values within the town. A 1999 phone survey of Winnetkans done by the Park District showed that 97% of residents say school quality is "very important" to home values.

Will the passage of Home Rule have an impact on the School District?

The passage of Home Rule on the spring referendum will not affect the status of tax caps for the Winnetka Public Schools. We will still be held to increases of the lesser of CPI or 5% and will need to return to the voters for increases necessary to run the schools.