McLean County superintendents say revenue from the countywide sales tax is making a difference one year in.
The County School Facilities Tax [CSFT] was passed by McLean County voters in April 2025, adding a 1% tax on goods like retail products, fuel and online purchases when it went into effect that July. The revenue from that tax, distributed by the Regional Office of Education, can be used for facilities, in place of property taxes for the purpose of paying off debts and for school security and mental health needs.
Unit 5
McLean County’s largest district receives more than $1 million each month from the sales tax revenue. 72% of the revenue spent so far has been for property tax abatement, while 17% was spent on safety and security and 11% was spent on facilities needs.
With approximately $6.5 million spent on property tax relief, according to Unit 5’s property tax savings calculator, the owner of a $255,000 home saved an estimated $161.50 on annual property taxes so far.
For mental health and security spending, Unit 5 has been putting money toward the salaries of workers like school counselors, social workers, psychologists and school resource officers [SROs]. Unit 5 added a new SRO through the tax revenue to work at all Normal elementary schools. Superintendent Kristen Weikle said the district is seeking to do the same for Bloomington elementary schools.
Weikle said Unit 5 is always looking to add school psychologists and social workers.
“There's always really a shortage,” said Weikle. “So we would love to be able to hire more of those individuals with this revenue, if we could find them.”
Weikle said schools like Illinois State University can only provide so many students in the mental health field to Unit 5. These positions, like many other aspects of the nationwide teacher shortage, are a hot commodity to fill at many school districts.
“There's not as many as what we would like as pre-K-12 districts, and I know the colleges and universities I'm sure are doing their best to recruit and attract students, but we could always use more individuals pursuing that,” said Weikle.
Unit 5 has tried to expand internship opportunities, provide resources and offer professional development for college students, in the hopes that they enjoy their time at the district enough to stay after graduation.
Olympia
The Olympia school district, based in Stanford and covering much of the rural areas west of Bloomington-Normal, had received $753,000 from the sales tax as of August. Superintendent Laura O’Donnell said rather than lock the district into certain percentages for each of the three spending options, the district spends that money at its discretion.
Up to $120,000 of that revenue had been spent on mental health needs, adding counselor support at Olympia Middle School and one full- and one part-time counselor from the McLean County Center for Human Services [MCCHS].
“We've always only had one middle school counselor, and we've been able to add another,” said O’Donnell. “This has been something the middle school has been requesting for some time, given the needs of our middle schoolers, but we haven't been able to do that until this point.”
The extra MCCHS support helped to slim down a waitlist of students, and their families, who are eligible to receive mental health support even over school breaks.
“We could never get them all seen because there wasn't enough staff and we didn't have the money to buy additional staff or contract for additional staff, so that was a huge need,” said O’Donnell. “And as soon as we knew that this was coming, this was one of our ideas.”
The facilities needs portion of the sales tax revenue was spent on some of the gymnasium work at Olympia North Elementary in Danvers, as well as a locker room overhaul at the high school.
The Olympia school district covers parts of three counties: McLean, Logan and Tazewell. Logan and McLean have implemented the sales tax, but Tazewell has not. It is on the ballot for the midterm election in November. O’Donnell said the district’s philosophy has been to spend the sales tax revenue in the counties that enacted the tax.
“The money is supposed to follow the students,” said O’Donnell. “Technically, the money goes into your general fund, but we tried to spend McLean County money on those campuses that are in McLean County, and the same would be said for Logan County.”
That means Olympia West Elementary in Minier still stands to benefit from the Tazewell sales tax, if it is approved by voters.
LeRoy
In the LeRoy School District, southeast of Bloomington-Normal, approximately $950,000 in annual revenue is split evenly between the three categories for sales tax spending. Superintendent Jeff Baughman said the district prioritizes spending on property taxes first, then mental health needs and then facilities needs.
“We've been able to lower our property tax rate from $5.56 [per $100 of assessed value] down to $5.03 this year, and I anticipate with our next levy, we'll definitely drop below $5, and a big chunk of that has been because of this,” said Baughman.
LeRoy added an additional school counselor through grant money after 2020, Baughman said. That second counselor allowed LeRoy to end the practice of having only one counselor to split between its elementary school and its middle-high school building. The sales tax helped LeRoy continue to pay the salary for the second counselor when the grant money expired.
“It allowed that person to be able to work even deeper with more students, and then really filled a better need at our elementary school because that allows us to intervene with some concerns even earlier, and then hopefully make things better down the road,” said Baughman.
The tax dollars were also used to add a director of safety and security, in partnership with the LeRoy Police Department. That position was filled by a police officer, overseeing all risk and crisis planning and management, and Baughman said it effectively means this hiring gave the school district an additional SRO.
“We don't have any significant security concerns in LeRoy, but as an additional person to build relationships with our kids, maintain positive relationships with our local police department and all of those community things — that's been a huge add,” said Baughman.
Heyworth
The Heyworth school district generated roughly $1.1 million in the first year of the sales tax.
The school district south of Bloomington-Normal spent approximately $200,000 on funding for mental health staff in the first year, and has budgeted to double that in fiscal year 2027. The extra funding would pay for a supports coordinator that focuses on social and emotional learning [SEL]. It also added a new full-time social worker, in addition to one already at the district focused on students with Individualized Education Programs [IEPs], that is available for non-IEP students.
“I think that's really a great opportunity and a great service for kids, especially in a small district,” said Lisa Taylor, superintendent.
Mental health staff shortages continue to hit school districts hard. Taylor said it is particularly difficult to hire and retain staff at the junior high and high school level.
“It's worrisome, especially as administrators, and you're looking at candidate pools,” said Taylor. “And when we do hire somebody, you're typically taking from a neighboring district. And so it's just, it's very worrisome unless you look out five to 10 years out, and how are we going to fill these teaching positions?”
Heyworth has a more general staffing issue as well. About one-fifth of the district’s current certified staff will be retired in about half a decade. Student teachers from Illinois State University continue to be helpful in providing overlap — working as substitutes in the district in the hopes they stay with the district post-graduation — but the need for them has grown.
“It used to be, ‘Let's just get a student teacher the semester before.’ But here lately, we've been adding, you know, a year before,” said Taylor.
“We're just looking at different avenues for recruiting and retaining staff. And I think we just have to be more creative because the candidate pools are so small for these positions, not just in mental health, but in teaching, too.”
For facilities work, Heyworth budgeted more than $210,000 on a real estate purchase, $60,000 for a maintenance truck with a plow and $40,000 on asbestos abatement at the agriculture building in front of a high school.
The real estate purchase entails about $175,000 worth of real estate across between the elementary school and ballpark, both of which are owned by the school district, to demolish the building and turn the property into additional parking space.
