Dist. 204 in black, but challenges await

Indian Prairie District 204 board members were given good news and bad news as they voted to approve the budget for the 2011-2012 school year.

The good is that the district is in the black as the state of Illinois nearly has caught up on its payments owed to the school district from last year. The state still owes the district about $143,000.

The bad is that the district will be facing some tough decisions in the coming years as revenues aren't expected to increase, but the cost of educating kids is. The district is looking at costs like refreshing schools' technology, making state mandated curriculum changes, putting in place new evaluation procedures that are required by the state and paying for upkeep of schools.

“The real challenge as we move forward is not just the fact that our revenues are flat at best, but also to meet the district mission while increasing some of our initiatives and our goals and putting them into place,” said Dave Holm, assistant superintendent of business. “You're going to be weighing fund balance versus cutting new programs. Those aren't easy decisions to make.”

During the last three years, the district has been operating under an austerity plan that slashed the budget by $30 million with cuts ranging from laying off teachers to cutting back on paper use. Also, building maintenance projects were put on hold. Those efforts, Holm said, have led to the district becoming efficient in how it spends money. District 204 spends $10,020 per student while the average in DuPage County is $13,504 and the average in the state is $11,197.

The school board on Monday approved this fiscal year's budget, which calls for District 204 revenue to be at about $285.9 million with expenditures at about $285.1 million.

“Please recognize based ... on the district's track record that we will work very hard to stay in the black,” Superintendent Kathy Birkett said of the tight budget. “We are closing out a budget ... and we are opening a discussion, a much tougher discussion, on how we move ahead. I think you are going to have to wrestle with many things.”

School board members have put goals in place to improve education in the district by increasing the number of students who meet and exceed state academic standards and by adding programs in science and technology. An entire panel of engineering classes is being rolled out in the district's high schools in the next three years.

Three Metea Valley High School seniors addressed the board Monday night, urging continued spending on technology and science programs. They said younger District 204 students will need opportunities to better stand out from other college applicants.

“We need to find out what makes us stand apart from the 30,000 applicants at Brown,” student Anmol Bajwa said. “I want to make this important for kids who are freshmen and coming into high school to start research projects and science, technology, engineering and math. This gives us an edge in college.”