The Oak Park-River Forest District 200 Board of Education received a briefing from the Community Finance Committee (CFC) on a newly drafted fiscal-stewardship section of the board’s “atlas” — a reference document for future boards that outlines best practices for debt issuance, benchmarking, and long-term debt management.

The CFC presenters said the atlas preamble emphasizes the importance of stable resources to support equitable education, that the district’s largest expense category is personnel, and that Illinois reliance on property taxes requires careful stewardship. The CFC described recommended “guidelines and toll gates” — a decision framework that asks objective questions (objectives, timing, instrument type, tax-levy impact) before pursuing debt such as capital building bonds.

Committee members noted the district has historically carried a large fund balance and has used deferred maintenance for much of the campus; the committee recommended evaluating capital bonds as a primary tool for major capital investment while minimizing taxpayer impact and aligning debt with beneficiaries of new infrastructure. The committee described a dashboard of peer-district financial metrics and a plan to publish financial metrics and peer benchmarking on the district website.

Board members praised the work and suggested the framework should be used broadly to normalize cyclical capital planning and to improve public transparency. There was no formal board vote on the atlas at the meeting; the item was presented as a committee report and will inform future budget and financing decisions.

Presenters said the atlas includes a slide-based table of Illinois debt instruments and called attention to slide 35–36 (in the provided materials) that visualize how capital bonds would appear within a total tax levy. The CFC recommended the board adopt a procedural approach that produces routine, transparent evaluations before issuing debt.