By Nate Bloomquist
IVCC didn’t need a quiz show to hit the jackpot. Instead, the college will receive a large sum of money through another sensation that is spreading throughout state colleges called equalization.
The college will receive $50,000 from the state, with the possibility of a lot more depending on the amount that is taken from the tax levy.
Simply put, equalization levels the playing field between community colleges in the state. And there is a specific formula to determine whether a school qualifies for the program.
According to Frank Zeller, to get the formula to find the average amount of tax money each college receives, the grand total of all state community colleges’ equalized assessed valuation (EAV) plus an adjustment for the Corporate Personal Property Replacement Tax assessed evaluation of each college divided by the total number of in-district full-time credit hours from each college (FTE). That number is the average assessed evaluation.
Depending on how low the EAV/FTE is, a check will be sent from the ICCB to the college. The minimum is $50,000, which is what IVCC will receive in December.
Before this year, there were only 13 out of 40 community colleges in Illinois that didn’t qualify for equalization. According to Dr. Frank Zeller, vice president of Business Services, IVCC didn’t qualify.
"We’ve been fortunate because we have Commonwealth Edison in our district," he said. "Recently we haven’t received as much from them, so we fell under the average and needed to apply for equalization."
According to Zeller, when Commonwealth Edison was added to the district, IVCC gained approximately $300 million in equalized assessed valuation. Since then, the college has lost most of that money.
"Our evaluation went down because we’ve pretty much lost all that we’ve gained from Commonwealth Edison," said Zeller. "That’s why we’ve qualified for equalization."
Equalization also gives the IVCC board the power to raise the tax levy by using a back-door referendum. IVCC’s levy hasn’t been increased since its inception in 1965, and a referendum has only been attempted once, unsuccessfully, in 1990.
A one-cent increase on that levy would net the college approximately $200,000.
"Fifty-thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money when you consider the size of our budget," said college president Dr. Jean Goodnow. "What we’re really happy about is the power through equalization is to raise the tax levy so we can continue to provide our high standard of education."
A one-cent increase in the levy will cost the average homeowner a mere $2.16. The power to raise the levy lies within the school board of trustees.
Goodnow said the board isn’t aware of the equalization program yet, but will learn more at a retreat in March.
The money from the levy then goes into the college’s general fund. IVCC received 17 cents per $100 last year in the equalized assessed evaluation. The state average is 23.5 cents.
IVCC has three sources of income, state, local, and tuition. According to Goodnow, the college currently has one of the lowest general fund tax levies in the state.
"We have very little control over what we get from the state," said Goodnow. "But now we’re really happy that we’ll have control over what we can get locally."