Wanless and Pleasant Hill students will attend school next year in the Feitshans School building, where the CCPA is currently housed.

The district has not yet announced its plans for the Pleasant Hill and Wanless school buildings after the schools are closed.
 

“We can’t get to a balanced budget by just cutting and cutting and cutting, because we’re getting to a point where we’re eliminating programs that are helping kids,” McFarland said. “So the community is going to have make a decision here — do they want us to continue to cut programs that are helping, or do we want a balanced approach where we have the revenue and the fiscal responsibility to keep the district moving to the right direction?”
 

But McFarland, who has announced that he’s running for re-election this spring, said he also wants to know what the district’s plans are for the buildings post-consolidation before he makes a final decision on where he stands.
 

Looby and board member Scott McFarland were the lone aye votes, both saying the district should see some of the revenue that TIF districts generate during its lifetime. TIF districts typically do not send additional revenue to school districts unless a surplus has accumulated at the TIF district's expiration."
 

“I really hope that we can work on a compromise to where we still have TIF districts do what they are meant to do, but also ensuring we are not cutting off valuable resources to our students for 23 years,” he said.

McFarland said the city’s assertion that the district is not entitled to additional tax money during the lifetime of the TIF district is only partly true.

“You would see an increase anyway in property value — over the course of 23 years, (values) are going to go up. We would have seen a revenue increase."
 

When a TIF is created, new tax revenues are re-invested in the TIF district rather than being distributed to taxing bodies. That loss hits school districts hardest because they receive most property tax revenues — about 65 percent of a Springfield resident’s tax bill goes to city public schools.

McFarland said the request would set a precedent for school board involvement in future TIF discussions.

Behind the 8 ball

“It’s not just for this TIF — if the city goes forward and brings more of these down the road, we need to have a set idea of what the district is going to ask for,” McFarland said Monday. “We really need to start meeting with city leaders prior to this one meeting. We’re obviously behind the eight ball … Yes, we believe this (the Dirksen Parkway TIF) should happen, but we would like to see it not completely hinder this district for next 23 years.”
 

Campaigning on district property, with district resources and in district-produced literature is currently prohibited, but board members have been working for about a year on making those rules clearer, more specific and in a single policy, Looby said.

“There are so many different policies floating around, we don’t have a specific policy that says this can and cannot happen,” McFarland said.

If approved, the effective date would likely be after the Nov. 6 general election but sometime before the April balloting when all seven school board seats are up for election.