Six compete for four seats on Lincoln-Way High school board

FRANKFORT – Finances are at the top of the minds of the six candidates seeking four seats on the Lincoln-Way High School District 210 school board.

On Tuesday, incumbents Christine Glatz and Kevin Molloy seek to retain their seats on the board, while Ronald Lullo, Chris McFadden, Joseph Spalla and Steve Kapsalis each look to be elected to their first terms.

Four have slated together in the election – Glatz, Lullo, McFadden and Molloy.

Christine Glatz

First elected to the school board in November 1993, Glatz is president of Glatz Management Services Inc. in Mokena. She has owned the company for 25 years.

During her tenure on the board, Glatz said she was honored to work with former Superintendent Lawrence Willey for 20 years. She would like to remain on the board to offer support to new Superintendent Scott Tingley.

Over the past seven years, the district has cut expenses by $9.5 million, Glatz said. State revenue has gone from $18 million in 2009 to $10 million in 2014, and projections show possible further cuts of another $1 million to $2 million.

The district will continue to look at cost reductions, Glatz said, focusing on areas that won’t affect students, as it has before. It has not had a formal discussion about possible revenue sources up to now.

Steve Kapsalis

A chemical engineer by background, Kapsalis’ main motivation in running for the school board is to give voters a choice when selecting new board members.

One area that concerns Kapsalis is taxation. While the economy turned south in 2008 and 2009, and his property values declined, taxes continued to rise, Kapsalis said.

“The school district can say they have done quite a bit of cuts, but as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think they’ve done enough,” Kapsalis said.

Were he elected, Kapsalis said he would look throughout the entire budget and comb through expenses. He opposes raising property taxes further, and believes that if the budget were managed correctly and money spent wisely, there would be enough to run the district.

Ron Lullo

Lullo has a background in criminal justice, sociology, business and education. He previously ran for the District 210 School Board four years ago, but was not elected.

He sees joining the board as “paying it forward” for the education both of his children received at the Lincoln-Way high schools.

One way to bring in additional revenue to the district would be to pursue sponsorships for extracurricular programs, Lullo said. Those programs – sports, music, as well as others – are often the first to see cuts when budgets are tight.

Chris McFadden

McFadden has school legislative experience, serving on the Frankfort School District 157-C Board since 2011. The last two years, he’s served as the board president.

A federal prosecutor formerly in private practice, McFadden said he has a background in municipal finance that would serve him well on the board were he elected. Both of his parents were teachers, and he feels comfortable with education policy.

In terms of finances, the Frankfort district had not raised its tax levy in three of the last four years, McFadden said. Last year, the levy increased only to capture new construction.

With outstanding debt from the construction of its two new high schools, there are similar opportunities for savings in District 210, McFadden said. The district also could look to overhead administrative costs for potential savings.

Kevin Molloy

An incumbent, Molloy joined the District 210 School Board in 2005, filling a vacancy left after the resignation of a member. He was re-elected in 2007, and again in 2011.

Molloy believes in term limits on government legislators, but with a new superintendent in the district and two board members deciding not to seek re-election this cycle, he wants to remain with the board to provide his experience.

“What brought me back was to support the vision that Scott brings to the table ... along with his fellow administrators vision on getting the ship straight,” Molloy said.

Molloy is a strong backer of corporate sponsorships for the high school’s athletics and extracurricular programs as a source of potential revenue. Having made $9.5 million in cuts, the district is about as lean as it can get, he said. With the state looking to take another $2 million or so, the options are becoming limited.

Joseph Spalla

Spalla is a member of the Mokena School District 159 Board. When he ran four years ago, that district had also faced financial issues. It had cut extracurricular activities, reduced programs and eliminated full-day kindergarten.

“So I got involved with it at that point, and learned a lot about school financing and how you do things on a board and was able to bring back over the past four years everything that prior board had cut,” Spalla said.

The district also introduced a dual language program in Spanish and English for kindergarten. Spalla worked through two teacher contract negotiations and helped hire a new superintendent.

Spalla believes District 210 needs more community involvement. The Mokena schools achieved what it did through such involvement, he said. It also needs better planning.

“I said to my peers, I would go through the budget, line by line, and they kind of laughed,” Spalla said. “But that’s what we did at 159. We had budget meetings every other Thursday and went through that line by line.”