The Village of Oak Park | 123 Madison St.  Oak Park, IL 60302 | village@oak-park.us

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What are the opportunities for coordination or consolidation between local governing bodies in Oak Park?

The Taxing Body Efficiency Task Force is seeking public input as it develops recommendations to identify cost efficiencies in the public services provided by the local government bodies that rely on Oak Park property taxes as a major source of funding. Public comments are being sought on the following topic through June 4, 2018:

What are the opportunities for coordination or consolidation between local governing bodies in Oak Park?

Comments are monitored and will not appear immediately.

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on

Finally! Yes! This should be done to save money! Unit or community school districts work. There are 387 unit district in IL...Elmhurst, East Aurora, wheaton, Westmont,Elgin. OPRF area pays 3 Superintendents!

Submitted by Anonymous on

There are opportunities for all units of local government to consolidate in some manner. I've cited the section of the from the Illinois Compiled Statues for each option.

For the school districts, there is an option via referendum to consolidate (D97 and D200 could even form a "partial elementary unit district" if River Forest would like to keeps its separate elementary district).
105 ILCS 5/Art. 11E

A municipality can absorb a park district if enough voters come to the park district with a petition for a referendum.
70 ILCS 1205/13. Specifically:L 70 ILCS 1205/13-8

I'm unsure if the Library is established as a Local Library (meaning the village sets their tax levy and appropriates the funds) or if it is a Public Library District (where they have their own taxing and spending authority). There is no provision I am aware of to convert a Public Library District to a Local Library (the opposite conversion is true however). But conversion to a Local Library could allow for the more publicly known Village Board to control the tax levy while potentially reducing administrative costs, such as payroll and HR, for library employees (a separate library board would still oversee the day to day operations of the library, as may already be the case).

And of course the white whale: the township. Unfortunately unless one of our state legislators wants to make some changes to Evanston's law (60 ILCS 1/Art. 27), then it would be up to the township board to put forward a referendum to dissolve the township. 60 ILCS 1/Art. 29

Submitted by Other on

Consolidate all back-office functions such as HR, payroll, procurement, finance, accounting, etc. from each taxing body under Village management. Not only will this help improve economies of scale, but it will also improve transparency, and ensure equal standards and definitions are used for all taxing bodies. This is no small task, but would realize significant long term financial benefit and accountability.

Submitted by Doug Kittredge on

I applaud the effort but I am not aware enough of the governing laws to even know what is possible. More information like what "Anonymous on Tue, 2018-05-29 20:14" posted would be a great help to me.

Submitted by Just a thought on

We do not need two school districts. Work withRiber Forest to combine to onerous spread costs.

Submitted by Anonymous on

Work with other areas to consolidate, perhaps the park district could consolidate with the park district in forest park or Berwyn. Or the township could consolidate with River Forest township. Or find out how to work with them!