04/11/11
The following elections were one by OTM endorsed candidates on Tuesday:
| Candidate Name | Position | | Melinda Hult | Belleville Ward Two Alderman | | Lillian Schneider | Belleville Ward Seven Alderman | | Sharon Schrekenberg | O’Fallon Township High School Dist 203 Board Member | Hult hammered her opponent; beating him by almost 10.00% (Hult got 59.48% of the vote.) Lillian Schneider in a three way race beating Jack LeChien, an incumbent, by over 10 points. Sharon Schrekenberg was the second highest vote getter in the District 203 race garnering 21.95% of the vote as one of five candidates. This makes the second District 203 OTM endorsed candidate to be elected, our first was Susan Holden, now Susan will have somebody to second her motions. Although we did not have any endorse...
08/15/10
District 203, now that they have spent themselves into bankruptcy, wants to ask you which school programs you would like to cut. It reminds me of the car salesmen asking you which car you are buying today, the red one or the blue one. The idea is to put you into a position of thinking you have no other choices other than buying the red one or the blue one. The real question is how many programs could have been saved if lavish wage increases had not been given to union employees and administrators, administrative assistants, janitors, etc.? How many programs could have been saved if the freshman campus building would have been postponed for four years? Following are the details of the District 203 meetings:
Time: 7:00 PM
Dates: Monday, August 16th and Thursday, September 2nd
Place: Katy Cavins Community Center,
Community Park
Time: 10:00 AM
Date Tuesday, September 7th
Place: O'Fallon Dist. 90 Administrative Offices
118 East Washington
...
08/15/10
Thoughts from Joe Behnken CPA, President (jrbehnken@charter.net)
Senator McCarter and the OTM board may or may not agree with opinions expressed.
No matter which community in St. Clair you live in, your taxes just went up again. Your District 90 tax rate increased by 3.2% and District 203 went up by .98%. These two school districts account for approximately 70% of your property tax dollars. Are your property values increasing? Are you getting a better product for your tax dollar? If you live in District 90, there are NINE taxing bodies which collect property taxes from you. EIGHT of those NINE raised their tax rates this year!
Do you think that a district should borrow money to meet its operating expenses? Fed up? Want to be part of the solution? Here's how. Talk to your friends and neighbors and find people who agree with you. Find someone who is willing to get involved and run for school board. That could be you. Why not? There are a couple of board members, fiscally responsible, who are trying, but they need help. The boards need like-minded, fiscally responsible indiv...
08/06/10
via the Illinois Business Journal
By Alan J. Ortbals
A combination of extravagant retirement benefits and a lack of fiscal discipline have made Illinois’ pension system the worst in the nation. How much the state needs to contribute to fully fund its obligations ranges from $79 billion to $200 billion, depending on whose math you use. In the spring, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation to reform its pension system in the future, raising the retirement age for full benefits to 67, limiting retirement benefits and ending what’s called “double-dipping” - being able to draw multiple pensions from multiple state jobs. But these reforms don’t touch the current crisis, according to State Sen. Dave Luechtefeld, a Republican from Okawville. “The thing that we actually did doesn’t really change our problem very much,” Luechtefeld said. “It doesn’t solve the present problem at all. Down the road it will make a huge difference on what the pension system will be.” According to a Sept. 11, 2009 news article printed in the Chicago Sun-Times, almost 4,000 state retirees receive more than $100,000 p...
05/26/10
BY MIKE FITZGERALD - News-Democrat The slumping housing market has finally caught up with the St. Clair County township multipliers that determine property tax assessments and, ultimately, the size of your property tax bills. As a result, multipliers in 18 of 22 townships have dropped for 2009, making it likely that property tax bills in those townships -- the first of which are set to show up in mailboxes next week -- either will hold steady or drop compared with last year, according to figures released Tuesday by the county Board of Review. Property owners can expect to see some tax relief this year because the multipliers are based on property sale prices within a township and averaged over three years, according to Dan Maher, the county director of administration.
So as the sale price averages from 2007 and 2008 -- the "go-go years" of the housing boom -- are taken out "and you start getting into '09, '10 and '11, that's when you start seeing some real adjustments," Maher said. The final size of taxpayers' bills, however, will depend on whether school districts within a township raise their tax rates to make up for lower as...
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