Riverside says it’s low on cash and can’t afford to foot the bill for crossing guards any longer. Riverside District 96 says providing crossing guards is an essential public safety service that the village has an obligation to provide. Both sides agree that crossing guards are valuable, but no one wants to pay for them.
The solution is for the two sides to meet in the middle on this. Yes, it is a public safety issue – specifically, for children attending the village’s public schools.
This isn’t exactly new territory for either taxing body. District 96 already pays for a portion of most crossing guard salaries and the full salary for the Ames School guard. While it’s a public safety issue, the district already has recognized its role in all of this in the past.
We think it’s time for the district to begin exploring taking on the lion’s share of this cost, while it should be the village’s police department that should supervise and organize the effort. Whether that means the school district would reimburse the village for crossing guard salaries or some other method of payment, there should be a way for such a money transfer to happen.
Taxpayers really don’t care who pays for it; it all comes out of the same tax bill.
There’s lots of lip service paid to consolidating services and sharing the tax burden to the benefit of those paying the bills. The crossing guard issue would seem to be one of the easier ones to solve.
But that’s going to take recognition by the school district that the village is running low on funds, while the district is riding high, thanks to a tax referendum denied the village.
Thanks, sisters
Our favorite holidays are the truly American ones – Memorial Day, Fourth of July and, best of all, Thanksgiving. It’s more than football and turkey. It’s a celebration of family and is the one holiday where most people truly reflect on just how they fortunate they are to live in the United States.
It’s not that way for everyone, of course. There are many families struggling to make it right now, struggling to pay bills, make mortgage payments and find work.
That’s what makes organizations like the St. Barbara Food Pantry such a blessing in this area. It helps feed people from Brookfield and beyond, staffed by a cadre of tireless, retired nuns who volunteer their time, because the need is there and they are driven to serve.
At this point in their careers, these sisters could be packing it in and heading off to retirement at the mother house after decades of teaching children and serving in overseas missions.
It apparently hasn’t crossed their minds to do so, and for that the wider community should be especially grateful during this Thanksgiving season.