More for gas, less from state for Geneva schools' bus budget

Geneva school officials, like counterparts throughout the suburbs, are counting on less money from the state for busing for the next fiscal year.

And they're also expecting to pay $100,000, or 42 percent more, for fuel than this year.

The transportation salary line will also increase, as the district is going to start busing its special-education preschoolers rather than contracting with an outside firm. State law requires districts to provide preschool to students with developmental disabilities and delays. Other students attending Friendship Station preschool, a joint venture of the school district and the Geneva Park District, are driven by parents.

District 304 unveiled the budgets for its transportation and operation and maintenance funds Monday night.

It calls for $3.32 million in revenue and $3.16 million in expenditures, excluding monies received and spent in the bus buyback program. The school district contracts to buy new buses with a firm that guarantees to buy the buses back after one or two years at a set price. The district anticipates spending $4.7 million to buy buses at the end of June and receiving $3.9 million on the sale of the previous buses in July.

The district is counting on receiving 29 percent, or $591,000, less from the state for busing, as the budget proposed by the governor calls for cutting school transportation funding in half.

In the operations and maintenance budget, the district anticipates revenues of $3.32 million and expenses of $3.16 million. It expects salaries to drop 2.6 percent, in part because two positions (a security worker who retired and a custodian who quit) won't be filled.

It will present the full budget May 23, publish it May 24 and have a public hearing and adopt the budget in late June.

The district used to wait until September to adopt the budget, even though the fiscal year starts July 1. State law allows school districts to do that. The district decided last year to abandon what board President Tim Moran called a silly practice and have a budget in place by July 1.