In our November 28 post we wrote about how Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 had finally figured out that it might be giving away hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars by not confirming that every student receiving a free D-64 education actually lived in the District.
But while it is gratifying to read that the School Board might actually be trying to finally address that problem, a recent Park Ridge Herald-Advocate story (“District 64 considers further residency requirement changes,” Dec. 19) raises new questions about D-64’s ability to be competent stewards of the taxpayers’ money that leave us scratching our heads and reminding ourselves of manager Casey Stengel’s indictment of his own New York Mets back in 1962:
“Can’t anybody here play this game?”
At the School Board’s December 15 meeting, Board member Dan Collins – the only one with the integrity and fiscal responsibility to have argued against free (i.e., at the taxpayers’ expense instead of the parents’) Chromebooks even though his household would receive two of them worth over $600 – argued for residency checks for every grade instead of just at enrollment, and again at entering third and sixth grades.
But this Board apparently is still driving under the influence of its senior – and most fiscally irresponsible – member, John Heyde. Consequently, it is continuing to look for plausible ways not to require annual residency checks for kids whose parents expect $14,000 (or $28,000, or $42,000, depending on number of kids in District schools) of free D-64 education.
Not surprisingly, Heyde is appalled that parents might have to endure what he has called the “pain in the neck” of proving their kids’ residency on an annual basis when, instead, he can simply dump any additional financial burdens of educating kids who don’t live in the District on its beleaguered taxpayers.
We suggested a no-cost way of doing the residency checks in that 11.28.14 post. But anything that won’t stiff the taxpayers or enrich public employees, preferably at the same time, is rarely (if ever) to Heyde’s liking. So with no shortage of encouragement from Heyde, the Board is having a cost-benefit analysis done, presumably one that will predict a boatload of expense for a mere bucket-full of savings. That’s usually the way these kinds of things are done.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, D-64 is looking to make it even easier for non-resident kids to get a free D-64 education.
The Board is thinking about letting kids who don’t actually live in the District – but whose families are allegedly in the process of building or renovating homes in the District – attend District schools for free for the 18 months prior to the construction/renovation being completed.
The current policy is that kids can start D-64 schools only 60 days before occupancy, although we have no idea what happens if the kid starts school and then the family doesn’t move into their new/newly-renovated home. Given the currently inept state of residency non-checks, however, we suspect the kid could be going to D-64 schools for years while living in Edison Park, Norridge, Des Plaines, etc.
But where the real mental breakdown occurs is in what passes for the thought process of the Board members when it comes to the traditional benchmark qualification for free education: the concept of “residency.” Either kids live in the District or they don’t.
What benefit to the existing District taxpayers is achieved by letting kids who don’t live in the District attend District schools FOR FREE for 18 months?
According to Board member Scott Zimmerman (Heyde’s very own “Mini-Me”), free non-resident education should be extended for at least 18 months, and even up to 24 months, before residency actually occurs.
Why?
Zimm blames the slow speed of construction in Park Ridge! And if that’s not dumb enough for you, try this one: “These people…are building homes and increasing property values in the district. I’d like to encourage that.”
There you have it, folks…further proof that Mark Twain was right when he said: “God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.”
Not content to have bungled his assigned task of making sure D-64 is producing the very best educational value for its students and its taxpayers in return for the high taxes we already pay to D-64, Zimmerman is now trying to play economist by shifting his attention to faux-stimulating the local real estate market through giving away as much as $28,000 per kid of D-64 education to NON-RESIDENTS whose parents already are committed to building/renovating a Park Ridge home!
Zimm could have lifted that bright idea right out of a scene from the movie “Dave.”
And it may have inspired fellow Board member Dathan Paterno to chime in with the equally goofy observation: “As long as they’re paying taxes on the property, they’re putting money into the system.”
By that kind of un-reasoning, should a Chicago family living in Norwood Park that owns a Park Ridge condo it rents out for $1,000/month to a senior citizen be able to send their kids to D-64 schools because they are “paying taxes on the property” and “putting money into the system”?
Chalk that up as just another sick joke on the taxpayers passing for stewarsdship from our elected representatives on the D-64 Board – one they are supposed to be voting on at their January 26 meeting, along with whether to do residency checks on the kids of homeowners more frequently than just at the time of initial enrollment.
If your sense of humor runs to the twisted and absurd, feel free to “Ha! Hah!! Hah!!!” Or, given the season, “Ho! Ho!! Ho!!!”
But if you’re a D-64 taxpayer, you’re still getting coal.
To read or make comments, click on title.
18 comments so far
What I can gather from the paperwork required by Distrct 207, “Proof of Residency will be established within 30 calendar days;…” and District 207 requires proof of residency EACH year in the form of a tax bill showing the Homeowners Exemption and 2 utility bills. If 207 doesn’t have a problem requiring this, what is wrong with the doofuses at District 64? And, what about students at the local private schools who receive services from District 64? Where’s their proof of residency, given that the private schools have students from other districts? Too much work for District 64 to monitor? Waa, waa, waa. Time for them to earn their salaries. Bah humbug!
EDITOR’S NOTE: And a partridge in a pear tree.
Why would anybody in their right mind want to let anybody into our public schools if they don’t live here RIGHT NOW? As you have pointed out many times, D-64 loses money on every kid enrolled there, unless somebody’s property tax bill is $42,000 so that their D-64 piece is $14,000.
Letting somebody who does not live here put their kids in our schools 18 months before they move in is so stupid there has to be some kind of special-interest back story to it. This is the kind of stuff that boggles my mind and lightens my wallet, neitehr of which makes me very happy.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If it made any sense to us we wouldn’t have written this post.
PD:
Hell, you can buy a condo in the city and make a few donations and your did get’s into Walter Payton Prep, even though your primary address is clearly on the north shore, and doing that still gets you elected governor.
Still on the topic of “where is your actual residence”, how many cars do you see in PR with Florida or Michigan or Wisconsin plates? I will grant you that is not a 14K education, but a few thousand but a few thousand city stickers a year and the sales tax on those vehicles suddenly starts to add up to real money.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Chicago is a corrupt cesspool, so virtually anything it does can be presumed wrong, wasteful, stupid, and corrupt. We don’t know where you hang out, but we see darn few vehicles in P.R. with out-of-state plates. But if we had our way, anybody caught with out-of-state plates despite a P.R. principal residence would be fined $5,000, with each citation fully publicized and the ticketing officer getting $1,000 of that fine as a bounty.
I agree with 5:38, except that I see no reason for any non-resident to get free tuition. If you have signed a contract on a house in July but are not closing until the end of September and want your kid to start at a D64, pay the non-resident tuition for two months and get it rebated when you close and move in. That way, if things go wrong and the deal doesn’t close, D64 isn’t out that money and having to chase it. Or the home buyer can enroll the kid in the school where he/she resides and then transfer in. This should not be this difficult, except that it looks like the school board members care about everybody BUT the taxpayers.
The problem is that Heyde and the rest of ’em are thinking about kids as kids, not as taxable units, and they’re thinking of public education for the next generation not as a personal perk but as the fundament that benefits all taxpayers, including those Park Ridge seniors whose kids grew up when the effective income tax rate was around 65% and things we now charge for a la carte were all part of the package your taxes in Park Ridge covered. They’re living in the past. What boggles my mind is that they’re educators but can’t come up with better rationales than the “hassle” to parents? Sheesh. Can’t they hire a PR person who knows enough to tell them never to shoot from the hip with lameass replies to the press? They should do what your savvy commenter suggests and just adapt the D207 system. Done and done. Not brain surgery.
EDITOR’S NOTE: When one has no appreciation, respect or sense of responsibility for OPM and the taxpayers who provide it, Heyde and his ilk can think whatever they want because it doesn’t cost them any more to be wrong, stupid and profligate than it costs the people they disrespect.
If you could PROVE, instead of simply posit or propagandize, that “public education…benefits all taxpayers, including those Park Ridge seniors,” we wouldn’t be having this discussion – including the irrelevant assertion about “the effective income tax rate” when our public education is paid almost entirely by PROPERTY TAXES, not income taxes.
To this D-64 Board, solving even something as simple as these residency problems IS “brain surgery” – but performed in a dark room by blindfolded surgeons wearing boxing gloves while using chop sticks and plastic sporks.
If you live here you should get the free education, if you don’t you shouldn’t. This should not even be an issue except for a school board that can’t seem to handle even basic tasks but then look for other things to mess up.
Love the movie “Dave” and the clip is perfect for illustrating the stupidity of what Zimmerman is proposing. Where do these people come up with these terminally stupid ideas?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We have no idea, because when you stop to do the math it is stone-cold crazy to want to add kids to the system any sooner than absolutely necessary: the homeowner (or renter) paying $4,000 in property taxes to D-64 (or paying $4,000 of rent to his landlord for D-64 taxes) with only one kid in D-64 schools costs all the other D-64 taxpayers $10,000 each year ($14,000 cost per kid – $4,000 taxes = $10,000 deficit paid by all other D-4 taxpayers). And the entire $14,000 cost of the second kid from that household falls on the taxpayers.
The irony of mentioning the DAVE movie is just too much to pass over. Do you folks realize why the character Dave was motivated to cut the budget?? Do you realize what the government was funding that was vetoed by the evil character and motivated the whole budget cutting scene??
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, we most certainly do…and we also know how Dave saved the homeless shelter and related social welfare programs vetoed by President Mitchell: BY CUTTING $650 MILLION OF OTHER LESS WORTHWHILE GOV’T PROGRAMS, like the stupid one referenced in the scene – which program is very similar to D-64’s Board debating something as stupid as giving away as much as $28,000/kid of D-64 education as an “incentive” to people who have already bought the property that they are building on or renovating. Except that the D-64 Board didn’t propose cutting anything to cover the cost of its giveaways.
And don’t overlook the fact that Dave DIDN’T raise taxes to do it.
You still missed the irony.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Then by all means, end the suspense and clue us in!
Your right PD. I now recall all your support for shelters over the years…..especially shelters (or assistance programs)funded by tax dollars. It must have slipped my mind for a moment but I stand corrected. It isn’t ironic at all!
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you are referring to the ridiculous “if this is Sunday we must be in Park Ridge” PADS shelter that was proposed for Park Ridge back in 2008, we note that those would not have been funded by tax dollars; and we’ll stand on the views expressed in those anti-PADS posts, especially the 06.09.08, 07.11.08, 07.14.08 and 10.17.08 ones.
And if you are referring to our opposition to the City’s use of tax dollars to support un-accountable private corporation service providers, we’ll stand on the views expressed in our many posts on those issues, such as those from 02.08.10, 04.05.10, 04.29.10 and 08.09.10. Have you conveniently forgotten that our opposition to tax dollar funding of those organizations was based on things like over-budget expenditures (without commensurate cuts elsewhere, a la “Dave”), the seeming cost-ineffectiveness of those organizations, and their lack of transparency and accountability?
How ironic!
Is it not true that you and the Mayor have stated many times your opinion that these “private organizations” should not receive government funding?? To quote the Mayor in one of his vetoes of 49K for center of concern, meals on wheels and Maine Center for mental health…..”As I have mentioned on many occasions, it is improper for us to take taxpayer funds and distribute them to private organizations”.
The vast majority of shelters in the US are privately run, by a church or by 501c. Your position and the Mayors is against the government funding such organizations, no?? I mean have you not stated that these organizations should be able to fund raise and if the public does not support them so be it??
So when I saw you reference and link to a clip (as some example) where a person digs in and cuts waste in government (A VERY GOOD THING!!!) solely motivated by making a sure tax supported program stays in place that you (or the Mayor) would in no way support, I am sorry but I find that ironic.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Your comments illustrate Benjamin Franklin’s quote that: “Half a truth is often a great lie.” Or, in this case, just an ordinary lie.
This editor (speaking both through this blog and outside it) and Mayor Schmidt have both stated that “private organizations” should not receive City funding UNLESS either: (a) they contract with the City for specific services provided solely to Park Ridge residents at a specific price, with full transparency; or (b) the voters, via referendum, endorse the public funding of those organizations. Not surprisingly, at no time did any of those organizations offer to accept either of those conditions in order to qualify for City funding.
As for “waste in government,” the word “waste” isn’t even mentioned in that clip from “Dave.” Instead, the issues there are PRIORITIZATION (“tough choices”) and BUDGET NEUTRALITY (a $47 million cut to the Commerce Dept.’s ad campaign in order to appropriate that same $47 million for welfare programs, achieving no net budget change).
So what you find “ironic” is, in reality, a lie you fabricated out of half-truths about that clip and some funding principles espoused by this editor and the Mayor.
“Irony” is all well and good, but can we please get this discussion back onto the schools wasting taxpayer money on educating non-residents?
When you build new aren’t there a couple years of tax break so to speak? The value is assessed at the prior years Jan rate (on the old property) or something? So give them 2 years to build and then another 2 years for that tax bill to come up to par?
EDITOR’S NOTE: You just had to point out how the deficits might actually be worse than we noted, didn’t you?
Funny, I missed the part where Dave demands a referendum before giving the money to the shelter program…..no wait he wanted to give the money to the shelter program because he thought that was what the government should do, period. In fact it was his only motivation for digging into the budget in the first place.
By the way, the Mayors quote in his written veto is pretty clear. He makes no exceptions or uses the word “unless”…..”As I have mentioned on many occasions, it is improper for us to take taxpayer funds and distribute them to private organizations”. There was no “Dave like” meeting where the Mayor went department by department cutting waste to come up with the money to give to CoC, which is what the character Dave in the movie was doing to save the shelter program. He simply feels these programs should not be supported by taxpayer money. Now that is a perfectly legitimate position to hold. Many in this country feel that way, but to then hold up the character Dave who feels exactly the opposite, is ironic.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Funny, you also must have missed 6th grade Civics class where they taught that the federal government doesn’t have public funding referendums. And the fact that, as we pointed out before, the word “waste” isn’t used in the scene from Dave – it’s all about priorities, which is exactly what Mayor Schmidt repeatedly said in addressing the handouts demanded by these private service corporations.
So why don’t you spend more time and effort on encouraging the City to establish the criteria Park Ridge needs to have these orgs meet as a vendor, or do what the City did for the Library and mount a referendum asking the public if it wants to restore funding to the Center of Concern, Maine Center and other key services? Wouldn’t that be more productive than stating and restating how public funding for human needs is always a waste?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve never said “how public funding for human needs is always a waste.” Our posts of 05.16.11 and 01.30.12, for example, demonstrate that fact – as well as the fact that these organizations had plenty of time (years, actually) to demonstrate their willingness to account to the City Council for what they do for Park Ridge residents, how many residents they do it for, how much it costs to do it, and what kind of contract they would be willing to sign to do it for the City.
Instead of offering to provide contract services, they demanded arbitrary handouts of taxpayer dollars without any accountability; and when they didn’t get those handouts they took their balls and went home.
So if you want those private corporations to provide contract services to the City, take it up with those private corporations.
I don’t always agree with this blog’s posts or its editor’s notes, but it’s right a lot more often than it’s wrong. What I find funny (not ironic) is how often people try to distract the discussion away from the point of the post or some of the comments about the post. I doubt that would happen if the commentators were required to post their names, but I understand why you don’t require that and I’m fine with that, as you can tell from this anonymous comment.
I had kids in D64 schools and I thought their educations were good. On the other hand, I don’t think they were so good that the teachers and administrators deserve the big salaries they make for 9 months of work, or the pensions that will pay them far more than mine becasue, in part, they will retire a decade or more before I will be able to afford to.
If every one of these schools is not ranked among at least the Top 100, our school board members and the administrators owe us taxpayers, us parents and the students a darn good explanation, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Good idea – this current School Board (and its predecessors) acts like standardized test scores and rankings don’t exist; and if/when they do exist, they’re meaningless. All that matters to them is that the teachers and administrators remain among the best paid around.
It would be interesting to find out if the Mayor and the alders would be content with such an arrangement or would come up with new pretexts, er, rationales, for not providing human needs funding. Given the immediate reality of the needs and the abstraction of the denying thereof, most folks in town would bet that new reasons to say no would be found.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Not as “interesting” as it would be to find out if any of these private community group corporations would ever: (a) actually identify how many Park Ridge residents have “needs” for their services; (b) tell the City Council what they do for those Park Ridge residents; (c) state how much it costs to do it; and (d) commit to signing a vendor’s contaract to do it for the City – as we said in our response to your 12.27.14 @ 10:36 am comment.
And the only “folks in town” who seem to think twice about this situation are the ones affiliated with those private corporations that aren’t getting their no-account handouts any longer.
9:20:
Two things struck me while reading your post. First (even though you at least called your self on it) there is nothing quite like anonymously bitching about anonymous posting.
Second, your point about distracting away from the point of the original post is just plain stupid. Is that really what you think is happening?? DO you think there are a bunch of people out in internet land that were going to post about the original topic but were distracted away by an off topic post?? The internet has unlimited space and people tend to post what ever strikes them in the general realm of the original post. Go to some other blogs and look at the threads. I assure this one is better that most about sticking to the topic.
If a person is passionate about the original topic and writes a comment related to it I am sure that PD would post it. It seems to me that the direction and number of posts reflects what the majority of those following the blog at any given time what to discuss. On this thread it may also reflect a lower number of followers because of holiday vacations.
By the way, if you really want to be picky, your post was a “distraction”. The point of the post was education non district residents with our tax dollars. Your comment was did not mention that al all. You should thank PD for being so tolerant.
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