Dist. 211 approves budget for 2013-14

Only one resident expressed concerns about Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211’s budget before the board of education approved it Thursday night.

Total direct expenditures in the 2013-14 budget amount to $249.1 million, with salaries and benefits accounting for more than 75 percent of that amount. Property taxes provide 86 percent of the budgeted $239.8 million in direct revenues.

While there are planned deficits in the debt service, capital projects and life safety funds, the district’s operating budget is balanced, with $224.3 million in revenues over $217.1 million in expenditures.

Bill Lloyd of Hoffman Estates, a former District 211 board member, said the budget includes an over-accumulation of tax-provided funding.

“This budget is a testament to excess and could be viewed as a breach of the trust the community has placed in this school board,” said Lloyd, who served from 2005-09.

He added that he felt the board’s decision earlier this year to transfer $15 million into the district’s operations and maintenance fund from its education fund to pay for swimming pool expansion projects at all five high schools was wrong.

“Have all the schools in District 211 reached perfection in student achievement? Have all the needs of disadvantaged and special needs students been met? Teachers have absolutely all the resources they need in the classroom to effect outstanding outcomes for every student? The answers to all these questions must be yes if we have the luxury of such discretion with $15 million,” he said.

Board member George Brandt did not attend the meeting, and Anna Klimkowicz was the only board member to comment on the budget before the vote.

“I do have very mixed emotions on the budget itself because there’s things in there that I truly support and there’s other things that I have difficulty with,” she said. “I really hope that as we start working toward the next budget, we really take a look at all the parts that are in there and see what we can do to do a little bit more cost containment.”