Huntley teachers, officials to meet Sept. 14

Here's something we have unfortunately become accustomed to in Huntley Unit District 158: another week without progress toward a new teacher's contract.

The school board and the union negotiating team met Sept. 7 to try to reach a deal.

But the discussions focused only on the first year of the contract, and from what I'm told, no headway was made in closing the gap between the two proposals in the first year.

To date, no tentative agreements have been signed on any contract items.

The lack of progress has become so routine that board member Larry Snow wouldn't even entertain my question about whether the sides had reached a deal Sept. 7.

"What's your next question?" he asked.

The sides are scheduled to meet again Sunday, Sept. 14 and have two more meetings scheduled after that.

At this rate, it's shaping up to be a long year in District 158.

In the past couple of weeks, District 158 released an interesting comparison prepared by board Vice President Tony Quagliano.

The chart, available on the district's Web site at www.d158.k12.il.us, compares District 158's fund balance at the end of the 2006-07 school year to that in other McHenry County school districts.

As I noted in my last column, fund balances, a relatively arcane topic, have become an issue during this year's teacher contract talks.

A district's fund balance is how much money it has on hand. The fund balance fluctuates throughout the year as the district spends the money and gets revenue, but the relevant number is the balance at the end of a school year and start of the next school year.

District officials have repeatedly suggested the district's teachers union has been using the district's year-end fund balance as evidence of a huge surplus.

As I have noted earlier, District 158's recorded surplus at the end of the 2006-07 school year, the most recent year available, was $3.4 million, while the district's fund balance was $16.4 million.

The chart prepared by Quagliano sheds further light on the issue.

It tries to show that at the end of the 2006-07 school year, most school districts in McHenry County had a higher ratio of fund balance to expenses than District 158.

That is, most districts in the county had more cash on hand than District 158, according to the comparison.

I did my own comparison of K-12 districts in McHenry County. This excludes most of the districts in Quagliano's chart because they only include high schools or elementary schools.

I found that District 158 had 27 percent of the revenue it received in 2006-07 on hand at the end of the year - the second lowest percentage out of five districts.

I used revenue as a point of comparison instead of expenses because this is what the Illinois State Board of Education uses to evaluate a district's financial health.

Interestingly, District 158's fund balance-to-revenue ratio placed it in the category of lowest risk, according to the state board of education.

The district was just above (depending on your perspective - the district was about $1.3 million above) the threshold that would have placed it at greater risk of financial difficulties - 25 percent.

That's the percentage District 158 set as a goal in its recent revision of its fund balance policy - the same policy the teachers union has asked to negotiate.

Let's hope the district doesn't trade financial security for labor peace.