McHenry County Blog

Former Carpentersville School District 300 Board member and school finance authority Linda Rafanello may receive some unwanted publicity from a Jersey County law suit.

The reason is a young man named Jeff Ferguson, who became disgusted when his local School District 100—after conferring with Rafanello, then vice president of LaSalle Capital Markets—decided to build a new high school and grade school when the old one was adequate.

State taxpayers would provide a lot of the money, but the local school district had to provide 60-70% in matching money. The school district—not under a tax cap common in the Chicago area—decided to sell $14.2 in bonds without voter approval.

Attorneys Frank Duda from St. Louis and Rod Pitts from Madison County filed suit for the outraged taxpayers earlier this month.

When I talked to Ferguson in April, here is what he said:

Taxpayers are very upset about the consequences of the property tax that will be imposed upon them by the decision made by school administrators and a single digit school board. The people spoke in a (1999) non-binding referendum when 71% opposed building new schools.

The people overwhelmingly lined up to sign the contract to retain the attorneys.

The goal of the suit will be to prove the need for new schools was not established, as required by state law.

After working for LaSalle, Rafanello moved on to the Harris Bank. Now, she is with PMA Financial, where she advised Huntley School District 158 during its highly controversial tax rate hike referendum a year ago. In 2005, she was a member of the Illinois State Board of Education's Financial Advisory & Information Committee. She also served on the Carpentersville School District 300 until resigning in March. She was replaced by Dave Alessio.

Ferguson hopes the Jersey County action will

have a domino effect throughout the state where districts have been persuaded to take grants they could not afford in order to build new buildings they did not need.

Jersey County is not the only Downstate community where complaints have arisen about the state's capital construction assistance program. Former State Rep. Roscoe Cunningham (R-Lawrence County) has commented negatively about the program in his newspaper, The Sumner Press.

Here is the group's web site.

Tomorrow read about some of the inspiration for the Jersey County suit.