Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – When District 186 board members meet Dec. 1, they’ll vote on a proposed $129.4 million tax levy.

The district’s business manager, Steve Miller, presented his numbers to the board Monday – a 4.5 percent increase from the current year’s levy. The key, he said, is to ask for more money than you expect, because you will not get more money than you ask for.

“Our revenue comes from three sources: local, state, and federal,” Miller explained. “Our property taxes are our local revenue sources. They represent almost fifty percent of our total district budgeted revenues, so a majority of our revenues come from here.”

Separately, Miller fielded a question from board member Debi Iams about progress toward knocking down the current year’s $17 million deficit.

“We haven’t been able to identify any potential cost savings at this point?” asked Iams.

“We are currently working on that as a cabinet,” answered Miller. “We’re starting to look at where we can make some cuts. We always want to make cuts away from the classroom as much as possible, but we have a lot of cuts to do as well.”