District 87 will hold a public hearing on Wednesday related to the proposed sale of $20 million of district-owned cash bonds for planned facility improvements.
The hearing will take place at 6:30 p.m. at Bloomington High School as part of the District 87 school board's regular monthly meeting.
Michael Cornale, chief financial and facilities officer of District 87, said the bonds will give the district more working cash and help rework its debt.
“Currently, we have debt out to 2032. We’re going to restructure that debt and extend out to 2037, so we’re going to add about five years to our current debt structure,” he said. “By doing that, it’ll actually pay some of the debt off early that we have and we’re able to generate about $20 million of new revenue.”
Cornale said the district is confident it will get a favorable rate to pay back the bonds as interest rates have begun to decrease.
He said the new revenue will be used to pay for renovations to the Willie G. and Gloria Brown Education Center that houses classes at the Bloomington Career Academy.
“The career academy is 100% operational, things are going great over there —1,000 students walk through the doors every day over there,” he said. “We’re certainly fortunate that we were able to work out a deal with State Farm to make that purchase, an affordable purchase.”
Cornale noted the $3.5 million price tag of the building purchase from State Farm is partially being paid for by member districts and not solely by Bloomington constituents.
He said $15-16 million of the cash bonds will go toward funding the move of the Sarah E. Raymond School of Early Education to the education center. About $3 million will go toward renovations of the south gymnasium at BHS.
“That particular structure hasn’t been touched for [about] 50 years, so we’re looking at several things within that space,” said Cornale. “Full paint, the gym floor ... there’s locker rooms in there, of course there’s bathrooms associated with that ... one of the bigger needs is that that particular building is not air conditioned.”
Cornale said the district is starting to analyze preliminary prints of the plans and hopes to start gathering bids for work in early 2026. Work could start as early as the summer.
Shared sales tax
The shared sales tax approved last April allowed a 1% countywide sales tax to be allocated for school facilities and safety measures. After going into effect July 1, Cornale said District 87 is still committed to using $2 million of the money received to help pay down its debt.
“Today, our need is right around $6 million … to make good on our long payment, our debt service payment, and with the first $2 million will offset that debt service,” he said. “So when I ask for a levy, instead of levying the necessary dollars to get the $5.8 million, my levy will basically at the end of the day ask for $3.8 million.”
District 87 signed a pledge along with Unit 5 to use some of the tax revenue to provide property tax relief.
However, without the Equalized Assessed Value [EAV] rates finalized in the county, Cornale is unable to say how much property tax relief the sales tax will provide for homeowners.
“What I can tell you is it equates to approximately, and there’s parentheses around my approximately, but approximately 20 cents a bet,” Cornale said. “We are committed to giving back $2 million, but until I know the final EAV is, I can’t tell you specifically how that impacts your particular tax, that’s not fair.”
Next steps
Cornale thinks the bond sale is necessary to tackle the scope of the projects.
“When you take on big projects, you need cash today to pay for things” he said. “Bonding is the only way that we’re able to generate enough cash to pay for projects.”
District 87 does not want to be in a position where it is cash poor and has to make difficult decisions about what to fund, he said.
If the results of the public hearing are favorable, Cornale said the district will move to finalize the sale of the bonds later this fall.
