Kadner: Battle over tax abatement results in two resignations

• Reprints

Ed Moody

Updated: March 6, 2012 8:18AM

A school board president and a fellow board member resigned last week after they lost a battle to abate funds to taxpayers.

Ed Moody, who was board president in Chicago Ridge School District 127 1/2, said he felt outside “political influences” would prevent him from effectively leading the board in the future.

In November 2011, the board voted 5-2 to rebate $400,000 of the $600,000 in the district’s debt service fund. The fund can only be used to retire debt and for no other purpose.

Everyone I spoke to, from the superintendent to the business manager to board members who opposed the abatement, agreed that the district is in good financial shape.

But the school administration wants to spend the money in the debt service fund for other purposes.

It can do this apparently by issuing new bonds for, say, $600,000 and immediately repaying that debt with the $600,000 in the debt service fund. The new bond money then could be used for any educational purpose.

“That just doesn’t seem right to me,” Moody said. “The people paid taxes to retire the debt, and I think they should get the money back if we don’t need it.”

Cook County apparently requires school districts to levy 5 percent more than they need to repay bonds to make sure there is enough money to avoid a financial crisis.

That 5 percent has been building up each year for about 10 years in the District 127 1/2 debt service fund.

“We will continue to receive that money each year, more than $50,000, and I was never proposing that we deplete the entire fund, just $400,000,” Moody said.

Moody estimated that the rebate would be about $200 per household, although opponents claim that number is misleading because businesses with higher property tax bills would receive a larger amount than single-family homes.

After the school board passed the abatement in November, some citizens appeared at a December board meeting and asked the board to reconsider its approval. The board agreed, although Moody said he was absent due to illness.

Moody, who said he has a history of surveying local residents on issues, then sent two letters and a survey to Chicago Ridge citizens about the abatement. He paid for the mailing himself at a cost of $2,000, he said.

The superintendent and some of the school board members I spoke with contend that the first letter was sent out under Moody’s title as school board president without consulting anyone else.

“I didn’t think I had to do that,” Moody said. “I was the school board president. I paid for the mailing. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.”

But he sent out a second letter under his name without a title. That letter said “the (debt fund) money was never meant to be introduced into our operating budget” and “the school district presently has $14,624,000 in reserves.”

Of the 853 survey responses he received before the school board’s January meeting, Moody said, 818 residents said they wanted a tax abatement.

But at the January meeting, the board voted 5-2 to rescind the abatement. Village Trustee John Lind was among the citizens who urged the board not to abate the money.

“There were other politicos there as well,” Moody said. “I felt a lot of pressure was being applied to board members to change their votes.

“For some reason, I think, people believe I’m going to run for mayor and have political ambitions, and they’ve targeted me and the school board because of it. I’m not running for mayor.”

When pressed further, Moody said, “I will not run for mayor. I will not run for state senator or state representative. I have no political ambitions.”

School board member Robert Gushes, a village employee who also supported the abatement, resigned as well. He refused to comment on why he did.

District 127 1/2 Supt. Joyce Kleinaitas said that given the possibility that the Legislature will shift teacher pension funding onto school districts and make reductions in other state aid, she wants to make sure the district remains solvent in the future.

“Our first priority has to be educating our children,” she said. “If we should have to pass a (tax increase) in the future, I think that would be very difficult.”

I told Moody that I felt he owed it to the people who elected him to remain in office.

“I think the position requires that the students come first, and I can’t be effective any longer,” he said. “I have too many powerful political enemies, and everything will end up being about me instead of the children.”

I can’t help thinking that District 127 1/2 lost a great opportunity to do the right thing and buy some credibility with taxpayers.