The Board of Trustees for the City Colleges of Chicago today unanimously passed a slight property tax increase with little discussion.

No one in the audience commented on the tax increase and there was no discussion among board members, other than a brief overview of the levy from the district’s finance director, Ken Gotsch.

The new levy for the city colleges is $2.05 per $100,000 assessed value. That’s an increase of about 10 cents per $100,000 assessed value compared to last year’s levy rate. The district expects to raise $125.5 million from property taxes this year, a seven-percent increase over last year’s revenue.

Part of that increase is because the district will start receiving property taxes that had been tied up in the Central Loop tax increment financing district, which expired this year.

In other business, some board members appeared concerned about how the district was spending its $5.6 million budget for marketing and public relations.

District spokeswoman Elsa Tullos briefed the board on her department’s marketing efforts following a request from board member Terry Newman in August.

“The question has been posed, what are we spending, how are we spending it and what are we getting,” Tullos said during the meeting.

She described a host of advertising efforts, including television, radio and Internet ads targeting Hispanics, as well as print and television ads designed to boost enrollment and hire new faculty.

According to Tullos, the city colleges saw 800 additional student applications completed online this year as a result of the advertising efforts.

Newman, however, remained skeptical of how the money was being spent, suggesting that too much was being used on recruiting efforts and not enough on building the city colleges’ brand and name recognition.

“I also have a problem with a $5.6 million budget when over 30 percent of that budget is related to costs of personnel,” Newman says. “You’ve got $700,000-plus with marketing people at the campuses and you have $700,000-plus on personnel at the central office. I’d like a list of positions and salaries and who does what. I just think that’s a lot of money for a central office.”

Board Chairman Jim Tyree says the district should keep moving forward with creating a more thorough plan for advertising and marketing efforts.

“I just don’t think we’re allocating (money) in the right direction because we don’t have the information to do it,” Newman says.

Discuss

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