By Joe Ragusa
LEXINGTON – Lexington Community Unit School District No. 7 is asking March primary voters to pass a property tax increase.
The amount Lexington property owners pay to the school district would increase by 14.7 percent to a rate of 3.9 percent under the proposal. The tax rate would fall back down to its current level of 3.4 percent in four years. The increase is expected to generate $362,597 in new tax revenue for the district next year.
“I know there’s been a fear out there in the community and the area that the school, Lexington, was going to close this year or next year,” district superintendent Dwight Stricklin said. “We want to run this referendum to assure people that Lexington isn’t going anywhere, that we’re going to be here.”
Stricklin said the district can’t cut anymore than it has.
“We don’t have what we call, ‘fluff.’ We don’t have extra staff members,” Stricklin said. “We’re pretty much down to everyone that we need.”
Stricklin said two teachers have retired recently – a home economics teacher and a business teacher – and the district has been unable to replace them.
Stricklin said the district would have to start looking at cutting programs or even consolidating some of the schools within the district if the referendum were to fail. He said the district is expecting to run a budget deficit of $151,000 next year, which is down from a high-point of $851,000 in the 2013-14 school year.
The Illinois Primary is March 15.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].
