Agenda-Special Meeting @ 4:45
Agenda-City School Liaison Committee @ 6:00
The next board meeting is a special meeting (in addition to the regularly scheduled meetings) this Tuesday, August 25, at 4:45pm. There is then a separate City School Liaison Committee Meeting starting at 6:00pm. Time for public comments will be soon after each meeting is called to order. So if you can’t make one, you’ve got a second option. Check out our Board Advocacy Guide if you haven’t spoken at a meeting before and don’t know what to expect, or just for some extra info.
The City School Liaison meeting has an agenda that lists “TIF Districts Discussion” with no other context or supporting documents. My guess is it is to continue conversations being had about retiring TIFs to potentially add more tax revenue back to the schools. This was reported on by the Roundtable and others.
Thrive65 Note: The TL; DR - Board is approving borrowing because Cook County will likely be late paying again. This meeting is evidence of the significant cash challenges the district faces. All Cook County schools are feeling the pinch due to the County’s continuing problems paying our school districts. The Illinois Federation of Teachers has sued over the impacts to students and educators.
However, not all Cook County Schools are feeling it like D65. When it comes to days cash on hand, D65 is in the bottom 5% of schools in the state. That means we are less able to draw from our own reserves when situations like this arise. The District will likely seek more borrowing in September.
This meeting’s agenda indicates a special meeting for a board vote to apply to Cook County’s Bridge Loan Program for tax anticipation warrants. Those are basically short term borrowing mechanisms to get cash while waiting on payments from Cook County.
It is not the first time District 65 has approved tax anticipation warrants. In 2025, the board approved them in September and December. What is different about the County’s bridge loan program, is that these would be interest free. Evanston Now reported that last year’s warrants cost the District about $180,000 in interest and fees. While it would certainly help to avoid those fees, the bigger financial impact from the delayed payments from Cook County are the lost interest the District would gain if it had those owed property tax dollars in the bank. That same article reported the District’s spokesperson indicted last year’s delays cost the district almost $1 million in lost interest income.
The board will vote on a resolution authorizing $22.97 million in warrants, interest free, through the County’s program.
Importantly, the memo from D65’s CFO says “Although the $22.97 million will help the District meet payroll and vendor obligations, it will not fully address the projected cash-flow shortfall. The District expects to issue additional tax anticipation warrants in the near future.”
A memo from the district’s external financial advisors, PTMA Financial Solutions, provides more detail on this; indicating that the board may need to approve additional warrants at the September 14th board meeting, in order to ensure the “interim liquidity to ensure it can continue meeting payroll, vendor payments, and other operating obligations without disruption.”