District 150 Approves School Facility Sales Tax
By: Eugene Daniel
Updated: March 11, 2013
PEORIA - A
new sales tax could show up on next year's election ballot after a school board
vote Monday night.
District 150 wants to
add a one percent sales tax increase to generate revenue for school facility
improvements. The district voted unanimously in support of the tax and hopes it
will help maintain and expand facilities without increasing property taxes.
District 150 treasurer
Dave Kinney expects the district will lose nearly $10 million in general state
aid in 2014 alone. He says the district cannot sit still and do nothing.
"As those revenues
get tighter and tighter, if we don't have some way to help fund some of these
facility improvements, whether it's simple health life safety things or
expanding our network infrastructure, those types of things; it's got to come
from somewhere," said Kinney.
District 150 expects to
get $9 million annually from this tax.
School boards
representing more than half of the students in the county must take a similar
action for it to be added to the March 2014 ballot.
Forty nine percent of
students go to District 150 schools.
