District 54 adopts 2017-18 budget
The District 54 School Board adopted its 2017-18 budget after a public hearing at its August 10, 2017, meeting. District 54 expects to spend $257,807,375 during the 2017-18 budget year and receive $258,285,212 in revenues.
District 54 developed the 2017-18 budget based on the following parameters:
Revenues
• Property taxes for levy years 2016-2017 are based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which was 0.7 percent for the 2016 levy and 1.5 percent for the 2017 levy.
• Federal aid is expected to be comparable to 2016-2017 revenue.
• State aid is expected to remain flat.
• Working cash will be used to balance other fund deficiencies and finance long-term capital needs.
• Interest income is projected to increase based on rate recovery from several years of no growth.
• Local revenues will remain consistent due to the fee structure approved by the board, which is consistent with the prior year.
Expenditures
• Salaries for 2017-2018 are based on retirement projections of 10 employees retiring at the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year and the effective raise to employees of step and lane changes, plus 1 percent due to meeting district growth targets in math and reading for the 2016-17 school year.
• Benefit costs are projected based on actual 2016-17 costs with an overall increase of approximately 4 percent annually.
• There will continue to be a freeze on overall cumulative spending in supplies, purchase services, and capital outlay. The only exception is in the Operations and Maintenance, capital projects and Life Safety Funds, where cost of service increases cannot be controlled, and in the Education Fund for planned textbook or technology adoptions.
• Tuition costs are budgeted at an annual 7 percent growth, but are highly subject to fluctuation depending on what special education services need to be outsourced.
• District 54 will issue no new debt and has been debt free since Dec. 1, 2011.
To view the detailed 2017-18 budget, visit the District 54 Board of Education BoardDocs website at http://www.boarddocs.com/il/sd54/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=APKRFK6A29B7.