Count the CostAdams County ballot question, November 3, 2026
Our kids
count on us.
We agree.
We love our kids and want the best for them, same as the folks running the Vote Yes campaign. Where we part ways is the answer. $12 million a year in new taxes, on top of everything Adams County already pays, with no end date, isn't it. The district's own board update says it may need about $5 million in cuts. Its share of this tax is $8.5 million a year, forever. Show us what was cut from spending before the answer became a tax. Until then, it's a NO.
We agree teachers and staff should be paid fairly.
So does the district. But this tax can't pay teacher salaries directly, and the district says so. Its plan is indirect: move about $2 million a year of mental health staff salaries onto this tax, which frees that much for pay, then ask voters a second time, at a later election, to shift property tax dollars into salaries. Of about $8.5 million a year, the district names $2 million it would free for pay. The rest of the pay plan needs another vote.The questions their website doesn't answer
We read adamscountykids.org closely, and honestly, we agree with a lot of it. Kids deserve safe buildings and good teachers. What we couldn't find is anything about what was tried before the answer became a new tax. So here's what we'd like to know.
If this tax fails, why should kids or teachers be the ones who feel it?
Every example on the campaign's site ends the same way: no tax, fewer opportunities. But a budget has more than one line in it. Cutting the classroom first is a choice, and we'd like to know why it's the one being put in front of us.
Has spending outside the classroom been looked at?
We're for competitive, reasonable teacher pay. So show us the review of administration, overhead and the other costs that never touch a classroom, the one that happened before the answer became a tax. If it exists, it belongs on the campaign's website. We couldn't find it.
Why is the only choice "more money or fewer opportunities"?
There's a third option most families and businesses in this county already live by. Control costs elsewhere, set priorities, protect the classroom first. None of that is on the ballot, and none of it needs a tax to happen.
What did it cost to ask us for more money?
A year of Quincy Together workshops, a survey, mailers, branding, a professionally built website, and maybe paid planning help along the way. Who paid for each of those, and how much? If any of it came out of district money, that's tax dollars spent to ask for tax dollars, and we'd like to see the invoices.
When the money runs short, what happens?
Sales tax revenue moves with prices. The bills don't. We haven't heard what the plan is for a soft year, and we haven't heard anyone rule out a property tax increase to cover it.
A NO vote doesn't have to mean taking something away from kids or teachers. It can mean: control costs elsewhere, find efficiencies, set priorities, and protect the classroom first.
Trust has to be earned first
A permanent tax is a statement of trust. Before Adams County hands over $12 million a year with no expiration date, it's fair to ask the district that gets 71% of it to show it has fixed what it controls. Here's where we're stuck.
- The ask is bigger than the problem.The district's own FAQ says the alternative it showed the community was cutting about $5 million a year. Its share of this tax is about $8.5 million a year, with no end date. Even taking the $5 million at face value, the ask is about $3.5 million a year more. The district's answer is buildings, which brings us to the next question.
- Where would the $8.5 million actually go?The campaign leads with teachers, but the law won't let this tax pay salaries. The district's own FAQ lists the building projects it would prioritize: career-tech space at QAVTC, flexible and specialized classrooms, alternative space for junior high students, playgrounds, Morrison Theatre, Flinn Stadium, and the baseball and softball complex. Some of those are real needs. But there's no dollar amount next to any of them. How much goes to classrooms, and how much to the stadium and the ballfields? Voters should see that list with price tags before they vote.
- The choice was framed as a tax or $5 million in cuts.Quincy Together did put a cuts option in front of residents: about $5 million a year in people and programs. Framed that way, a tax wins every time. What we haven't seen is a line-by-line look at what could be trimmed without touching a classroom. The district's FAQ lists $1.8 million in cuts in 2017-18, and that's the most recent round it names.
- What did the campaign itself cost?Someone is paying for the Vote Yes website, the signs, the mailers and the printing. That's how campaigns work, and there's nothing wrong with it. But the district also spent a year on Quincy Together, and we'd like to know what that cost, which fund paid for it, and whether any of it was spent after the board voted to put the question on the ballot. Illinois lets a district inform voters. It doesn't let one spend public money to campaign, and that line is worth checking.
- Is administration too heavy?Publish the number: administrators and non-classroom staff per teacher, what they cost, and how that compares with 10 years ago. If that ratio grew faster than enrollment did, it's the first place to look, and we'd much rather look there than at a classroom.
- The one-time COVID money put off the hard choices.The district's own FAQ says it planned $1.68 million in cuts in 2021, and postponed them when federal COVID money arrived. That money is gone now. The bus barn spending fiasco is the part everybody remembers. Where's the full accounting of what the COVID money bought, and how much of today's "emergency" was put off rather than solved?
- Property taxes aren't going down. That's the plan.The district calls this "step one" of two. Step two is a later vote to move property tax dollars now paying for buildings into salaries. The district says the overall rate stays the same either way. So the plan never lowers your property tax. It adds a sales tax on top, and it depends on a second election that isn't on this ballot.
- We've been here before.In March 2020, QPS asked voters to raise the education fund property tax rate from 1.84% to 2.37%. Voters said no, 5,710 to 4,450. The ask is back in a different wrapper, with a better logo and a bigger website. What we haven't seen in the meantime is the spending review that would make this time different.
Fix what you control first, then ask. That's the order every household and business in this county lives by.
It doesn't lower property taxes and it doesn't replace anything. It's an extra 1% on most of what you buy, on top of every tax Adams County already pays, with no end date and no guarantee property taxes stop rising.
Where's the accountability?
We're not against spending on schools. We're against spending that no one has to answer for. Here's the last few years, all from the public record.
- The bus barn went from $3 million to $9 million in a year.In March 2022 the board bought the old K&L Arena for $2 million and figured on $800,000 to $1 million in renovations. Twelve months later it accepted a $7 million construction bid. The project grew, the cost grew, and the answer was to keep going.
- The five new elementary schools already need major HVAC work.Voters approved $89 million in 2014. The buildings opened between 2017 and 2019. In January 2024 the heat failed at all five in one cold snap, 21 compressor failures, and the district is now suing the engineer and the contractor. (And honestly, a couple of those "neighborhood schools" sit out on the edge of town, nowhere near a neighborhood.)
- A full school year of paying people not to work.Two Denman teachers were on paid leave from August 2025 to August 2026 while investigations ran, with substitutes paid to cover their classes. The superintendent was suspended with pay and paid through November under his separation deal, and the district paid an interim $1,000 a day in the meantime.
- Trouble keeping a superintendent.Six people in the job since 2013: three hired, two interims, and the newest started this July. Every change means a buyout, a search firm, and a year of getting to know the district.
- Test scores below the state.On the 2025 Illinois Report Card, 41% of QPS students were proficient in reading and 29% in math. Statewide it's about 53% and 38%. Quincy High's graduation rate is 81% against 88% for the state. More money hasn't been the missing ingredient so far.
Show us the review. Then ask.
What it really adds up to
The campaign leads with 18 cents on a fast-food meal and 64 cents on a tank of gas, and those numbers are true. They're also the smallest numbers available. Their own estimate is about $12 million a year in new taxes, every year, for a county of 65,000 people. Here's that number at full size.
Over time, using their numbers
Take the campaign's claim that 60% of Adams County sales tax is paid by people who don't live here (a floor from a consultant's memo that counts some local spending as visitor money). Even then, 40% is local, about $4.76 million a year out of Adams County households and businesses.
These aren't forecasts. They show what the campaign's $11.9 million estimate and its 60/40 split come to if both stayed flat. A percentage tax rises with prices, so flat is the low end.
What would it cost your household?
Move the slider to what you spend in Adams County each month on taxable purchases: restaurants, gas, clothing, electronics, home goods, hardware. Groceries, medicine and vehicles are exempt, so leave those out.
Simple math: 1% of what you spend, at today's prices.
Where the "60% paid by visitors" number comes from
It comes from a 6-page memo by PGAV Planners, a St. Louis consulting firm, dated March 30, 2026 and posted on the district's website. We read it. Here's the short version: it never counts who shops here. It does one subtraction, and the answer depends on what's inside two numbers the memo doesn't spell out.
Total taxable sales in Adams County for a year, worked out from state sales tax records. This number is solid.
What a computer model says county households would spend at stores and restaurants. This is an estimate, not a count, and it leaves out gas and car purchases.
$492 million is about 40% of $1.25 billion. So the memo credits everything else, about 60%, to people who don't live here.
Total taxable sales: $1.25 billion. The whole question is what's really in that gray part.
What ends up in "everything else"
The gray part isn't only visitors. Some of it is Adams County money that the memo's resident number simply doesn't cover.
- Lowers the 60%Local businesses buying supplies. This is the big one. Businesses pay sales tax on what they buy: parts, supplies, equipment, fixtures. The memo's resident number only counts households, so every dollar a Quincy business spends at a Quincy store appears to land on the visitor side. If local businesses make even 1 in 5 dollars of the county's taxable sales, the visitor share drops to about 40%.
- Lowers the 60%Residents' gas. This tax applies to gas, and the memo's resident number leaves gas out. Any gas residents buy here is probably being counted as visitor money. Plenty of Quincy drivers fill up across the river, so this matters less than business purchases, but it still pushes the same direction.
- Could lower itCars. The resident number leaves out car purchases. The memo doesn't say whether the $1.25 billion total leaves them out too. If car sales are in the total, residents' car purchases are being counted as visitor money.
- Raises the 60%Residents shopping elsewhere. To be fair, some Adams County residents shop in Hannibal or online. That pushes the visitor share up. The memo says so, and also says it can't measure how much.
- Unknown either wayIt's a model. The $492 million isn't counted from anything in Adams County. It's national spending surveys scaled to local incomes, with no margin of error given.
A floor, built on the subtraction above.
The floor became the headline number.
So what's the real number?
No one has measured it. The memo itself says part of it can't be measured with the data available. But you can get a rough sense by fixing the gaps one at a time, using the memo's own numbers. These are our estimates, not findings, and the math is below so anyone can check it.
| Step | Visitor share |
|---|---|
| The memo's starting point | 60% |
| Count local businesses' purchases as local (if they're 10% to 20% of sales) | about 41% to 51% |
| Count residents' gas bought in the county as local | a few points lower |
| Allow for residents shopping outside the county | a few points higher |
We could be wrong in either direction, and we'd gladly correct it. The district has the data to settle it, and it hasn't published the breakdown.
How we got there: the memo puts resident household spending at $492 million out of $1.25 billion in taxable sales. If local businesses account for 10% to 20% of sales ($125 to $250 million), the local share is $617 to $742 million, or 49% to 59%, which leaves 41% to 51% for visitors. Residents' in-county gas pushes it a little lower, and residents shopping elsewhere pushes it a little higher. We don't know the real business share. The memo doesn't either.
- What we agree with.Quincy is a regional shopping town, and visitors pay a real share. The memo's phone-location data shows Quincy Commons drew about 251,000 different people in 2025. That counts visits, not dollars, and it includes the 63,000 people who live here.
- The $12 million total holds up.The memo's $1.25 billion and the county's own quarter-cent jail tax both point to about $12 million a year from a 1% tax. The total isn't the weak spot. The split is.
What to ask for before you vote
- The breakdown of the $1.25 billion by type of business. The state publishes it. Does it include gas? Car sales?
- The spreadsheet behind the $492 million: which spending categories were counted and which weren't.
- The rest of the report. This memo is labeled "Appendix B." Where are the main report and Appendix A?
- What PGAV was hired to do, by whom, and what it cost.
There's a ready-to-send request for these in Get involved.
What if the 60% is too high?
The total stays at $11.9 million a year either way. The visitor share only changes how much of it comes out of Adams County wallets. Tap a scenario or move the slider.
Every 10 points lower adds about $1.2 million a year to what Adams County pays.
If the real share is in the 40s, Adams County families and businesses pay about $6 to $7 million a year, not $4.8 million. Every 10 points adds about $1.2 million a year. Ask for the breakdown before you vote.
Yes, gasoline is included
The campaign's examples list a "$64 tank of gas: 64 cents" and move on. Gas deserves a closer look, since Illinois already taxes it about as hard as any state does.
At $3.50 a gallon, another 1% is 3.5 cents per gallon, about 53 cents on a 15-gallon fill-up. That's on top of the Illinois Motor Fuel Tax, currently 48.3 cents per gallon on gasoline, plus state and local sales tax that already applies to fuel here.
Because this is a percentage, it rises with the pump price. At $4.20 a gallon it's 4.2 cents. That part doesn't show up in a campaign example.
| Pump price | Per gallon | 15-gal fill | Per year (2 fills/wk) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2.00 | 2.0¢ | $0.30 | $31 |
| $3.50 | 3.5¢ | $0.53 | $55 |
| $4.20 | 4.2¢ | $0.63 | $66 |
Per vehicle. A two-car household roughly doubles it.
At the pump
Set the price and how much you drive.
What happens when prices fall, and why there's no end date
The campaign says the tax grows with visitors' spending. Fair enough. It also shrinks with it, because a percentage tax is only as steady as prices are.
Take gas again. If the pump price drops from $4.20 to $2.00, the tax collected on every gallon falls by more than half, about 52%. That's one category. Every category behaves the same way when prices soften.
So here's the question we'd like answered: once the districts have built budgets around $11.9 million a year and a soft year delivers a lot less, what fills the gap? A property tax increase is the obvious tool, and we haven't heard anyone take it off the table. There's no guarantee in this proposal that property taxes won't keep rising, and honestly, there isn't even a promise.
The question on your ballot:
"Shall a retailer's occupation tax and a service occupation tax (commonly referred to as a 'sales tax') be imposed in Adams County, Illinois, at a rate of 1% to be used exclusively for school facility purposes, school resource officers, and mental health professionals?"
There is no end date in that sentence. The Illinois statute this tax is created under doesn't set one either. Once approved, it stays until voters go back to the ballot to remove it.
County school facility sales taxes in Illinois are authorized under 55 ILCS 5/5-1006.7. The rate can only be changed or ended by another referendum.
How long until we're told this tax needs to go up, or that cuts to teachers and students are coming again?
It's a county vote. It's a Quincy tax.
The campaign says "every district, every community," and that's true on the ballot. Look at where the money goes, though. Quincy School District 172 gets about 71 cents of every dollar. This is a QPS funding plan that needs the rest of the county's votes to pass.
Shares from the campaign's own district table (~$8.5M of ~$11.9M to QPS).
Camp Point, Liberty, Mendon and Payson each have their own school board, and each can put its own question to its own voters for what its own buildings need. What this ballot does instead is ask a farmer in Payson and a shop owner in Camp Point to chip in every time they fill up, so Quincy's district can put off a budget conversation it hasn't had yet.
Illinois residents already carry one of the heaviest state and local tax loads in the country. A new permanent county tax on top of it, with no spending review first, is a lot more than "a penny." It means we've quit asking where the money goes.
Their examples, finished
The campaign's "every day examples" table stops at a single purchase. Here it is carried through a year.
| Example | Their number | Over a year |
|---|---|---|
| $18 fast-food meal, twice a week | 18¢ | $18.72 |
| $64 tank of gas, weekly | 64¢ | $33.28 |
| $500 laptop | $5 | $5, plus every other purchase |
| $1,200 washer and dryer | $12 | $12 |
| $300/month at restaurants and stores | $3 | $36 |
| A local business buying $20,000/month in taxable supplies | $200 | $2,400 |
| Adams County, all of us | "just a penny" | $11,900,000 |
Yearly figures are the campaign's single-purchase numbers multiplied out. Groceries, medicine, vehicles and services stay exempt.
Questions people ask us
Aren't you just against schools?
No. We're against being handed a permanent tax before anyone shows the work. We're for competitive teacher pay and safe buildings, same as you. We'd like the districts to show what they cut, consolidated or renegotiated before asking the county for $11.9 million a year.
The campaign says most of the money comes from visitors. Doesn't that make it nearly free?
No, and the visitor share is probably smaller than you've been told. The 60% comes from a consultant's memo that doesn't count shoppers. It subtracts an estimate of residents' spending from total county sales and credits everything left over to visitors, and that estimate leaves out local business purchases and residents' gas. Our rough guess is that the real visitor share is somewhere in the 40s. Even at the campaign's own figure, 40% is local: about $4.76 million a year, $47.6 million over 10 years. And visitors don't vote here. See how the 60% was built.
Doesn't the money have to be spent on facilities, safety and mental health?
Yes. The district is upfront that it can't pay teacher salaries. Its plan is to move about $2 million a year of mental health staff onto this tax, freeing that much in the fund that pays teachers, then hold a second vote later to shift property tax dollars into salaries. So the district names about $2 million of the $8.5 million as help for pay right away. Its priority list for the rest includes career-tech space at QAVTC, specialized classrooms, playgrounds, Flinn Stadium, Morrison Theatre and the baseball and softball complex.
Isn't 1% small?
1% of a meal is small. 1% of everything Adams County buys, every year, with no end date, is $11.9 million by the campaign's own estimate. Both things are true. Only one is on their website.
Why does an end date matter?
Because "forever" is a different question than "for ten years to fix specific buildings." A sunset forces the districts to come back and show what the money bought. Without one, the tax outlives every project it was pitched on. The ballot question has no sunset, and the statute doesn't require one.
Didn't Quincy Together ask the community what it wanted?
It asked, and it drew real participation: the district reports five workshops and 1,607 survey responses. It also ran the meetings, wrote the survey and chose the options. The cuts option residents saw was about $5 million a year in people and programs. A line-by-line review of administration and overhead, trimmed before any classroom, wasn't one of the choices as far as we can find.
Will this lower my property taxes?
When was the last time your property taxes went down? No. Nothing in the ballot question reduces, caps or replaces property taxes. This is an additional tax. The campaign's line that it "won't change the property tax rate" just means this vote isn't what raises it.
How much did Quincy Together and this campaign cost?
We haven't been told. Between the workshops, the survey, the mailers, the branding and a professionally built website, it wasn't free, and that's fine; campaigns cost money. A committee called Citizens For One Quincy is registered with the Illinois State Board of Elections, and committee expenditure reports are public. The district's own spending on Quincy Together is a FOIA request away. We think both numbers belong next to the words "we can't afford to keep teachers."
What about the federal COVID money?
QPS, like every district, got one-time pandemic relief, and it's gone. We don't know exactly what all of it bought, and that's the point. The bus barn spending fiasco is the part people remember. A full accounting of that money belongs in front of voters before anyone asks for a permanent tax. Ask for it.
What happens if it fails?
The districts keep every dollar they have today and go back to work on the budget, same as the rest of us. If a specific, time-limited plan comes back with a spending review attached, it can go on a future ballot. This isn't the last election.
Who's behind this site?
Adams County residents and taxpayers who love their kids and their county. No school district, no party. If you'd like to help, see Get involved.
How to vote NO
Same dates and polling places as every other race on the ballot. The question is easy to miss, so look for it.
Check your registration
Visit elections.il.gov to confirm you're registered and find your polling place.
Pick how you'll vote
Vote early from September 24, request a vote-by-mail ballot, or vote in person on November 3.
Find the question
It's a countywide question alongside the candidate races. Read the whole thing, and notice it has no end date.
Mark NO
Then tell a neighbor who figured a penny couldn't add up to much.
Voting logistics
Contact the Adams County Clerk's office.
Phone: 217-277-2150
Website: adamscountyil.gov
Want to read the other side? Their site is adamscountykids.org. Read it, honestly, and then come back and see whether any of the questions above got answered.
Fix the spending. Show the books. Then ask.
We agree with the campaign on this much: our kids count on us. That's exactly why we're asking for answers before we hand over $12 million a year of new money with no end date. There's no office behind this site, no staff and no budget, so everything below is something you can do yourself in the next 10 minutes, and none of it waits on anyone.
Print a window sign
Letter size, black and red, prints on any home printer. Two versions: a big NO for a window or mailbox post, and a five-facts sheet for a break room or shop counter.
Open the sign and printSend this to three neighbors
The other side has the district's Facebook page and a professional website. You have a phone. Text 3 people who haven't thought about it yet.
Put the dates on your calendar
Early voting is open now. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, polls 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Add a reminder so it doesn't slip.
Ask what's inside the 60% study
The district posted a memo from PGAV Planners. It's a short appendix, not the full analysis. Email foia@qps.org or hand this to a board member at the next meeting. Copy, paste, send.
Ask for the price tags
The district's FAQ lists the projects it would fund, from career-tech space to Flinn Stadium and the ballfields, with no dollar amounts. The same FAQ invites questions at quincytogether@qps.org. Copy, paste, send.
Ask what the campaign cost you
Planning help, surveys, printing, the website. If the district paid for any of it, that's public money and a public record. Email it to foia@qps.org (Kimberly Wert, Board Secretary and FOIA Officer, 217-223-8700) or hand it in at 1416 Maine St.
Show up and ask, out loud
School board meetings are public and have a comment period. The schedule is on qps.org. You get about 3 minutes. Spend them on these three questions and ask for a written answer.
Write a letter to the editor
200 words, your own name, one point. The Herald-Whig and Muddy River News both print them. Pick one number from this page and say what it means for your family or your business.
Share a graphic
Pick one. Copy the caption (the link is in it). Save the image. Post both together and Facebook shows the picture with the link underneath. Squares for the feed, tall ones for Stories.
