Steve Springer's Rebuttal

Recently District 90 incumbent school board member Adam Weber labeled my writing as “misinformation” that demanded to be “Fact Checked”.  OK. The lone error in what I wrote was the principal amount of the Backdoor Referendum Working Cash Bond issue for $19.5 million dollars.  The actual board approved amount was $18.5 million.  What was not mentioned in the ‘critique’ was my major point!  That is, 3 of the 4 incumbent board members seeking reelection passed this bond issue without asking our permission to add over $18 million of additional debt to be paid with property tax dollars!  The voters of O’Fallon may have passed the bond issue.  If not, they could have realized a 15.5% decrease in the tax rate for D90 property taxes and an overall property tax rate decrease of 6.07%!  I think it should be up to us to decide!

Next issue.  I said that all of the incumbents voted to ‘raise your taxes by 9.9%’.  Again, not factually correct.  What they did was vote to increase the tax levy by 9.9%.  The levy is the dollar amount of what the district is asking for in increased revenues.  If district revenues go up the dollars must come from your taxpayer wallet!

The March 5th D90 Finance Committee meeting detailed an increase in property tax revenue for D90 from $19.9 million in FY’22 up to this year’s ask of $29.9 million for FY ’26.  That’s just over a 50% increase in just 4 years, folks!!  Please tell me how that doesn’t signal large increases in the levy don’t increase our taxes!

Weber then uses the discussion that the tax rate continues to decline.  No argument on that point.  The resulting ‘misinformation’ on his part though, is that this somehow means our tax bills are not going up!  Not so.  Our property taxes have been going up by 8 to 10 percent per year for several years now.  This is purely a function of large increases in levies and a minimal decrease in the tax rate multiplied by your increasing property assessments.

As far as Mr. Weber saying that the board responds “…to questions directly before voting on matters” is not ‘misinformation’, it is an outright lie.  In his total of 7 board meetings and a handful of committee meetings, there have only been 3 persons utilizing the public comment session at a board meeting.  Committee meeting minutes don’t show any public participation since he began serving on the board.

For the utmost best information available on Property Tax funding and mechanisms, please go to ‘ourtaxmoneyofallon.com’.

Vote on April 1st or sooner.  Vote for the Challengers in every case you can, especially for D90 school board members.  No Incumbents.  We need change.  Incumbents are:  Miller, Weber, Van Hook & Andrews.