Maximizing Your Tax Dollars

South Point, our newest programming facility was dedicated on September 23, 2008. Cutting the ribbon were representatives of the school district, park district, and preschool children who will benefit from the park district's newest programming facility.

South Point, attached to Southbury Elementary School, houses preschool classrooms, Kindergarten Kid’s Connection classrooms, a conference room, office space, a community room, and multi-purpose programming space. A certified kitchen allows the all day kindergarten participants to enjoy hot meals as well as provide a venue for park district cooking classes. Program participants have access to the school gymnasium and playgrounds when school is not in session. The connecting vestibule enables separate entrance that will be great for evening programming, community use, and Fox Valley Special Recreation Association’s summer camps and programs.

So how did we build a new facility without a referendum? Basically, it’s the result of an innovative idea, mutual needs, fiscal responsibility, and intergovernmental cooperation. Our preschool and kindergarten before and after school program had outgrown its leased space in the industrial park. Likewise, the school district needed land upon which to build a facility to house their early childhood programs. The park district had the land, and it was around this premise that the idea evolved.

On November 13, 2006, an intergovernmental agreement between the Oswegoland Park District’s Board of Commissioners and Oswego Community Unit School District’s Board of Education signed an Intergovernmental Agreement. That agreement arranged for the Park District’s donation of 10.3 acres of land to be used as the construction site for the school district's Early Learning Center. In exchange, the school district arranged to build a separate Park District owned and operated wing on Southbury Elementary.

On September 12, the Illinois Association of Park Districts recognized Oswego Community Unit School District and the Oswegoland Park District with a first place IAPD Intergovernmental Cooperation Award at the "Best of the Best" Awards Gala in Wheeling, IL. Representatives from the Park District accepted the award on behalf of both districts.

I invite you to visit South Point at any time, and while you do so, be reminded of the good things that can happen when tax supported agencies work together in partnership for the benefit of the residents we serve.