The voters said yes. Now let’s watch how it’s spent.

On Tuesday, voters in School District 45 approved the district’s request to raise its limiting rate, 7,695 to 6,134, or 55.6% to 44.4%, according to the DuPage County Clerk’s unofficial results. It was the closest of the local results on Lombard ballots. The numbers can still shift a little as late mail ballots and provisional ballots are counted, and they become official only after the county’s canvass, but the outcome looks settled.

We recommended a No vote on this question, and on High School District 88’s bond question as well. Our neighbors weighed the same facts and reached a different answer, and we respect that. Elections are how a community decides, and this one decided.

That does not end the tax question. It simply moves it from the ballot box to the school board table.

The increase raises District 45’s limiting rate by 0.2670 percentage points, to 3.2229% of the taxable value of property in the district, and it is permanent. The district estimates it will cost the owner of an average $350,000 home about $299 more a year and bring in about $4.4 million a year for its schools. In the district’s own words, the money will restore reading support, advanced academics and student services, bring back fine arts, intramural sports, clubs and other activities, keep class sizes reasonable, and strengthen its finances so it can maintain its buildings and plan ahead. The ballot question itself listed instructional programming, student support and services, operations and maintenance, and safety and security.

Those are good goals, and they give everyone a clear list to measure against. The 6,134 neighbors who voted No deserve to see that list kept, and so do the 7,695 who voted Yes. Families who said yes trusted the district with more of their income, and families who said no will pay the same increase anyway. Both have every reason to pay attention.

Paying attention is not hard. District 45’s Board of Education meets in public, and the district also holds finance committee meetings. Its annual budget is a public document, and its yearly audit, which state law requires, is presented to the board each December. Reading a budget summary or sitting in on one meeting a year would tell most of us more than any campaign mailer did.

The same habit is worth keeping for District 88. Voters there approved $118 million in bonds over about 20 years for Willowbrook and Addison Trail, 69.6% to 30.4%. The district promised “no net tax rate increase,” because the new bonds replace older referendum debt that is paid off after levy year 2026. That is a specific promise, and it is one we can check against our own tax bills over the next few years.

School districts are not the only line on our property tax bills, and many candidates this fall talked about easing the property-tax burden on families. We hope the new members of the DuPage County Board will take that seriously, too.

Lombard is a place where neighbors disagree at the ballot box and then help each other shovel the same sidewalk. The vote is in. Now the watching begins, and it belongs to all of us.