District 13 budget will need supermajority

It’s going to take a 60 percent majority to pass District 13’s proposed budget for next year because of a bus proposition that’s on the ballot.

The proposition, which would reduce the distance from school beyond which fourth- through sixth-graders are eligible for busing, would push the tax levy over the allowable increase under the state’s new tax-cap legislation. While the budget proposal carries a 2.9 percent tax levy increase — just under the district’s permitted limit — the bus proposition bumps the levy increase up to 3.9 percent.

Meredith Brosnan, the assistant superintendent for business, said the proposition is expected to cost about $296,000. If it passes, transportation would be available to all students in the district living a half-mile or more from their school, which would mean that an additional 370 children would be eligible for bus service.

Currently, transportation is offered to students in kindergarten through third grade who live at least a half-mile away and those in grades 4 through 6 who live at least a mile away. Because these limits were initially approved by voter referendum, changes can only be requested and approved through the same referendum process. Parents submitted a petition with 120 signatures.

“This is not a proposition that the board is in itself generating,” said Board of Education President Frank Chiachiere. “This came from the community with the required number of signatures, so it is going on the ballot. We want everybody to be very clear that the board did not propose this transportation proposition; it was correctly filed by a group of interested parents.”

Chiachiere and other school officials spoke about the bus proposition at the district’s Feb. 15 budget presentation at the James A. Dever School. They noted that both the budget and the bus proposition will need a 60 percent “supermajority” to pass because, when their costs are combined, they exceed the tax cap. Even if the bus proposition fails, the budget will still need 60 percent of the vote to pass simply because the two are on the ballot at the same time.