Q: What issues will the building improvements address?
A: The referendum will fund a Mundelein High School facilities plan designed to replace aging infrastructure, upgrade instructional spaces, enhance career and technical education spaces, make health, safety and security improvements, and address overcrowding issues.
The 63-year old school, designed to house 1,500 students, now exceeds 2,200 students. Enrollment is increasing with 251 new students over the past seven years with more housing growth expected over the next decade.
Much of the school’s infrastructure has reached the end of its useful life, and common areas such the cafeteria, kitchen, gymnasium and auditorium experience challenges ranging from poor accessibility, to lack of air conditioning and overcrowding.
Space for the Career & Technical Education program, formerly known as shop class, has been reduced over the years and is too small to house the equipment needed for skilled trades training and other CTE classes.
Q: Will the District use the funds exclusively for facility and site improvements?
A: The bond proceeds can only be used for capital facility needs. No funds will go toward operations.
Q: What is the student capacity at MHS?
A: According to Eppstein-Uhen Architects, a high school’s maximum capacity considers how many students a school could support at any time if all seats were occupied for each period every day. However, operating a high school at maximum capacity is often unrealistic due to scheduling issues related to room and staff availability. Therefore, architects and planners apply a utilization factor to the maximum capacity that better predicts the total number of students that function for the specific age group the building serves.
Eppstein-Uhen considers functional capacity for a high school to be 80 percent of the maximum capacity. Mundelein High School has a maximum capacity of 2,500, making its functional capacity 2,000. MHS is currently 229 students beyond the functional capacity.
Q: How old is Mundelein High School?
A: Mundelein High School opened 63 years ago and much of its infrastructure was designed to last 50-75 years.
Q: With projected growth, at what point will Mundelein need a new high school building?
A: With passage of the 2024 referendum, District 120 will not need a new high school for the foreseeable future. Our facilities plan accounts for future growth that includes upgrades and expansion of our common spaces in the school. It also adds classrooms to allow for current needs and future growth.
Q: What improvements are included in the facilities plan?
A: District 120’s building improvement plan includes the following repairs, renovations and additions:
- Repairing or replacing outdated, inefficient mechanical, electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems.
- Updating fire safety systems.
- Creating a properly sized space within the high school for Career & Technical Education (CTE) programming.
- Updating the health and wellness spaces and bringing them together into a centralized area to create continuity, free up classroom space and make access easier for students.
- Upgrading the kitchen and cafeteria servery to alleviate space, health and safety issues.
- Expanding hallways to address safety and overcrowding issues.
- Creating additional classrooms on the building’s west side.
- Creating a flexible-use multi-purpose center (fieldhouse) that would support multiple physical education classes and provide space for health and wellness programming, athletics, assemblies, competitions, community events, performances and practices.
- Building a new competition gymnasium to address the current limitations of the old gym and make room for a new media center / library.
- Expanding music classrooms and storage space to accommodate the number of students enrolled in those programs.
- Addressing infrastructure needs at the District-owned Village Green property to relocate tennis courts and certain athletic fields.
- Adding a ring road around the campus to improve traffic flow, decrease traffic congestions, increase safety and security and provide additional parking.
- Provide new space for the Transition Center program.
Q: Would any money not included in the Nov. 5 referendum be used to fund the proposed improvements?
A: Yes. District 120 remains committed to allocating $50 million of monies not obtained from this referendum towards facility and site improvements. In order to make the most efficient use of these funds, they will be used in conjunction with the $149.5 million of voter-approved referendum dollars. The total cost of the improvements will be $199.5 million.
Q: What will the tax impact be on the owner of a home in Mundelein District 120?
A: The estimated tax impact for the owner of a $300,000 home is $414 / year or less than $35 / month. (This is about 40 percent less than the tax impact of the $175 million referendum that voters turned down in 2023.)
The impact for the owner of a $400,000 home would be about $564 / year or about $47 / month. And the impact for the owner of a $500,000 home would be about $714 / year or less than $60 / month.
Q: When will taxpayers see the impact on their property tax bills?
A: The referendum will not likely impact taxpayers in 2025 as the existing $50 million in debt service funds will be used to pay for the project’s first year. The timing of the full impact will depend on when the District sells bonds to receive the full amount of the referendum. The sales of bonds may be done in phases over the term of the three-year project
Q: What is the impact of Mundelein’s TIF Districts on Mundelein High School Financing?
A: The Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is a tool used by the Village of Mundelein to fund improvements within the TIF district. The money is made by freezing the taxable assessed value of the property in the TIF. As the value of the property increases, the tax revenue from the property’s increased value is set aside for the TIF. Taxing bodies such as schools, parks, fire, police and village government are limited to collecting taxes on the property’s value at the time it is frozen. The TIF freezes the tax value for 23 years. This means the school district loses out on new tax revenue as property values inside the TIF increase in value.
Q: How much does the school district receive annually in developer impact fees?
A: Developer impact fees are set by the Village of Mundelein to fund the impact housing developers have on local governments and services (schools, police, fire, etc). While District 120 has had opportunities to communicate its needs with the village officials, the Village of Mundelein determines the amount developers pay. Since 2016, School District 120 has received a total of $1.2 million in impact fees. Those monies are put into the District 120 Building and Grounds Fund.
Q: How does this plan make the most efficient use of our taxpayer dollars?
A: District 120 is fortunate to have a facilities director with a background in project management. By using our own project manager, we would save money by not hiring a consulting project manager. Our architectural and engineering consultants have a proven record of obtaining grants to supplement our investment in these projects.
Q: What is the proposed construction timeline?
A: The construction timeline will begin in the spring of 2025 and last about three years. The District, architect, and construction management team will work together to develop a phasing plan that is least disruptive to school operations but still allows the work to pace out as efficiently as possible to be cost competitive.
Q: Will many of the improvements be addressed during the summer months to minimize the impact on day-to-day operations of the high school?
A: The intent is to perform a majority of the construction activities during the summer months. If there are opportunities to reduce the overall timeline of construction by performing construction during the school year with minimal impact to students and staff, they will be explored.
Q: How will students and staff be kept safe during construction?
A: Safety is our number-one priority. Much of the work will be done during the summer months when fewer students and staff are in the building. A project-specific safety plan will be developed for each stage of construction and will be updated as the project progresses. We will develop logistical plans that will identify hard barriers to isolate construction activities from other occupants in the building.