Low cash reserves have Dist. 21 bracing for major cuts

If you think talking about increasing class sizes is tough, get ready.

In the next couple of years, Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 will look at either closing a school or abandoning neighborhood schools in favor of grade-based schools, said Dan Harrison, school board president.

"It's not something any of us want to do, but it's something we are going to have to look at in the next two to five years," he said. The board is looking at short-term and long-term cuts to avoid a projected $12 million deficit in five years.

To get through the 2011-12 school year, the board says it must choose from eight cost-saving options. Those include cutting all after-school programs and increasing the acceptable class size from 25-27 students to 30 students in the elementary schools and to 32 students in the middle schools.

The board will make those decisions in late February or early March.

Long-term, District 21 must take even more drastic steps, officials say. Closing one school outright would save $650,000 per year. Switching to grade-based schools would save only $400,000 because transportation costs would go higher, said Daniel Schuler, assistant superintendent of planning.

"We're looking at the worst of the horrible decisions," said board member Pamela Becker Dean at a budget workshop on Thursday. "No one wants to do any of this."

But the district says it has little choice.

In 2003, voters approved a tax increase that helped pull the district out of a $7 million deficit. Since that time, the district has slowly pulled itself out of debt, but today it has a reserve account of only $1.5 million to $2 million, Superintendent Gary Mical said.

"When I started with the district (in 2003), we had a significant amount of debt and have been slowly getting out of that situation," Mical said. "The district had been doing fine until the economy's meltdown."

If no cuts are made, District 21 will start the 2011-12 school year with less than $1 million, Schuler said.

By contrast, Mount Prospect Elementary District 57 has a reserve account of about $6 million for a $20 million budget.

Northwest Suburban High School District has anywhere from $51 million to $76 million on hand for its $228 million budget. Maine Township High School District 207 is looking at laying off 137 teachers and other employees despite having $86 million in reserve.

Besides the economy, Schuler blames tax caps that limit the district's ability to increase taxes for the 2010-2011 school year beyond 0.1 percent, which was the Consumer Price Index from December 2007 to December 2008.

This means District 21 will essentially have the same amount of money in 2010-2011 as it does in 2009-2010.

Given the economy, asking for another property tax increase is out of the question, according to school officials.

District 21 has about 700 employees and a yearly operating budget of about $100 million. About 80 percent of the budget pays for salaries and benefits.

Because of the low reserves, the District 21 board will make some tough decisions next month and next year. The situation doesn't sit well with some parents.

"You have failed our children," said Joe Seymour, a District 21 parent. "We have one of the highest-paid superintendents in the state. How about making some pay cuts there?"

Mical's base annual salary, as reported on the District 21 Web site, is $261,439.

The next school board meeting is at 7 p.m. Feb. 11 at the administration center, 999 W. Dundee Road, Wheeling.