Urbana Property Tax and Superintendent Updates

[UPDATE x2: The board chose Jennifer Ivory-Tatum as the new superintendent. From the News-Gazette:

After a Sunday evening school board vote, the current assistant superintendent of Champaign’s Unit 4 is now poised to assume Urbana’s top leadership role as members unanimously confirmed Ivory-Tatum as the district’s next superintendent.

The decision left the nearly-full boardroom cheering and applauding, making it feel less like an announcement and more like a homecoming for Ivory-Tatum, who spent 12 years in the district prior to joining Unit 4 administration.

Full article here with background and more information about her career with the district. WILL had additional coverage here. As with a lot of the Urbana schools coverage, there always seems to be a hint at the underlying power dynamics without clarity. So much is obscured by rumor and closed meetings, it's difficult to know exactly if an old power bloc was just restored in dramatic local government fashion. Sometimes the answer is more mundane than the rumors. With school boards and local power, history shows it can get brutal.]


[UPDATE: WCIA is reporting that a decision on the superintendent hiring will be made tomorrow night at a special school board meeting. The agenda is available here and lists a board vote for superintendent as the only action item.

The Urbana School District will have a new superintendent on Sunday.

The board will make their decision during their meeting at 7:30 on Sunday evening.

Full WCIA blurb here. Meeting agenda here.]

There's an Urbana City Council Committee of the Whole meeting tonight, but I can't tell from the agenda if either the property tax figures or the superintendent pick for District 116 will be addressed for certain. The News-Gazette coverage hinted at the possibility for the superintendent pick last week:

Urbana school district announces 3 superintendent finalists
...
The Urbana school board plans to choose a new superintendent from a field of three finalists by mid-May.

Among the candidates announced Tuesday is a familiar face: Champaign Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Ivory-Tatum, who left Urbana after an unexplained demotion from then-Superintendent Don Owen’s administration in 2017. Prior to becoming a deputy superintendent in Urbana, Ivory-Tatum was principal of Martin Luther King Elementary School.

Ivory-Tatum is the lone local candidate in a field that also includes Brian Metcalf, managing director of Impact at City Year Chicago, an education nonprofit aimed at helping students in high-need communities succeed; and Kirk Koennecke, superintendent of Graham schools in St. Paris, Ohio...

The board expects to formally announce its choice to replace Owen the week of May 12, following “an extensive vetting process.”

That full article with more details here. Another article at the previous step, previewing the narrowing down to three candidates here for more information on the process. This is following up on previous Cheat Sheet posts available here.


The City of Urbana is also working to resolve an issue with the County over incorrect tentative information on property taxes. From the News-Gazette last Friday:

Urbana's 2018 tax rate skewed by inclusion of OSF properties
The city of Urbana's 2018 municipal property-tax rate was tentatively set too high because OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center properties were taxable for that year, local officials said...

OSF HealthCare, which bought the Urbana hospital from Presence Health in February 2018, doesn't agree its Urbana properties are taxable for 2018, according to the Peoria-based system's corporate counsel, Michael Henderson.

The Champaign County Board of Review conducted a hearing on OSF's application for 2018 tax exemptions and recommended to the Illinois Department of Revenue earlier this year that the exemptions be denied.

The state granted the exemptions, but the county is appealing that decision and a final decision is pending, according to county Assistant State's Attorney Joel Fletcher.

 This is also partially related to the issue with the County's tentative property tax rates:

The county clerk's office has since posted an update saying final tax rates will be available May 20. That's the tentative date county officials have set for 2018 tax bills to be mailed.

Hannan said the county clerk's office incorrectly set Urbana's 2018 municipal tax rate — which is part of the overall rate Urbana residents will pay this year — at $1.5591 per $100 of assessed value.

The city had directed the county to set its tax rate lower than $1.3555 if any hospital properties were taxable for 2018, so the city's rate will be reduced to 1.3499, Hannan said...

Andy Rhodes, the county's IT director who is assisting with this year's tax work in the county clerk's office, said the tentative municipal rates for both Champaign and Urbana will be lowered when final rates are issued.

"The county clerk's office missed applying abatements to the city of Champaign and city of Urbana levies, and it generated an artificially high rate," he said.

More at the full article here. More on the County property tax delays at another Cheat Sheet post here.


[Updated. Originally posted 5/13/2019 at 9:28am.]

[Updated x2. Previously updated 5/18/2019 at 4:49pm.]