As regular readers of this blog know, we tend to devote a majority of our posts to the operation of City government.  In large part that’s because City government directly affects all Park Ridge residents in a variety of ways, while the other governmental bodies impact most residents more indirectly by their effect on our pocketbooks through their ever-increasing tax assessments.

But our postings also reflect the fact that the City Council appears to be the most transparent of all of our local governmental bodies – with its meetings broadcast live on WOW, the meeting videos posted on the City’s website, and the meetings regularly covered by on-site reporters from both local newspapers and the TribLocal.  City Council meetings also regularly feature the most vigorous public policy debates.

Nevertheless, we try not to ignore the other local governmental bodies.  And a report in last week’s edition of the Park Ridge Journal (“Dist. 64 Fine Tuning After School Costs,” 05.23.12) about the fees for D-64’s “after-school program” at Jefferson School caught our attention, especially the part about how D-64 is attempting to fine-tune that program to reflect parents’ complaints…about the cost of the program! 

Many/most taxpayers might expect parents who already are getting $10,000+ per year, per kid, of what amounts to “free” education not to beef about paying the fully-loaded costs of the after-school program (a/k/a babysitting) that enables them to work and afford the property taxes to obtain that almost-free education for their kids in the first place.  Unfortunately, such an expectation would be wrong, at least as to those shameless-but-vocal parents who seem able to make a relatively spineless administration and school board quake in their boots.

So, as reported by the Journal, a 6-1 vote of the D-64 Board ensured that those parents will continue to get dependable, well-supervised after-school babysitting for the low, low price of $5/hour – less than most of them pay the neighbor kid for less-dependable services when they go out to dinner and/or a movie on Saturday night.  And because of those low, low rates, the District projects a $5,866.93 loss for FY 2011-12, and a $17,540 loss for FY 2012-13.

That should be unacceptable to the taxpayers who already are subsidizing the vast majority of the cost of a D-64 education. 

If one believes in the value of public education – as we do – one also has to accept the fact that there are limits on what that “public education” covers, and at what cost.  The first phase of our research on the origins of public education in this country has led us to conclude that taxpayer-funded “public” education was intended to include nothing more than the basic classroom education: the old “readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic.”

Yet currently, in addition to the after-school babysitting program, D-64 offers a variety of “elective” extracurricular activities, such as athletics and music, for which it does not even attempt to recover the fully-loaded costs.  Instead, those activities are designed only to cover supply expenses, not the expenses for the personnel who teach/coach/administer them.

A report dated May 21, 2012, from the D-64 Community Finance Committee “Community Coordinators” Ares Dalianis and Genie Taddeo (both former D-64 Board members) shows that the CFC appears to be making some progress in getting a handle on the true costs of providing these activities.  More importantly, as noted on Page 4 of Attachment 1 to that report, the CFC is proposing “investigating the true costs of these electives, plus any other clubs or activities, and increasing elective fees to accurately cover all costs associated with the elective programs.”

All we can say is: “Bravo!”  And: “It’s about time!”

We are big fans of user fees, primarily because they are one of the most effective ways – if not the most effective way – of restricting discretionary, unnecessary and/or excessive use of public services whose costs are both significant and reasonably allocable.  Elementary school elective and extracurricular activities fit that bill to a “t,” which is why it is refreshing to see somebody associated with the D-64 administration actually talking about recovering those costs.    

Now we just need to see whether the CFC, and the D-64 Administration and Board, can walk that talk.

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