Dist. 220 looking to cuts, teachers contract for savings
Barrington Unit District 220 board members Thursday night had just approved a barely balanced tentative budget for the school year ahead when they directed staff to form a committee to look for ways of cutting $2.8 million from the following year's budget.
Board member Jeff Church suggested reopening conversations with the teachers' union over the terms of the controversial three-year contract approved last November.
No other board members echoed Church's comment about the contract and he emphasized that it was his own "editorial" opinion.
Uncertainty over state funding levels and the rate of inflation made balancing the 2010-11 tentative budget a challenge, and why officials believe they can't relax in their planning ahead for 2011-12, District 220 Chief Financial Officer Gary Frisch said.
The $2.8 million in cuts his office is currently recommending for the 2011-2012 budgets comes from an estimated $1.8 million drop in state aid coupled with an estimated $1 million in salaries and benefit costs that will exceed the rate of inflation. Budget cuts made last winter are what allowed the 2010-11 budget's revenues to exceed expenditures by only $1.16 million.
But that success in balancing the budget was a hard-won victory, Frisch said.
The total $3.3 million in budget cuts made earlier this year involved the reduction of 15.3 teaching positions, $431,000 in operations and maintenance costs and holding back $1.8 million in what would normally have been spent on summertime building renovations.
Frisch and board members alike acknowledged that deferring maintenance costs can't last forever as a way of saving money.
Though the process of looking for future cost savings will begin almost immediately, board President Brian Battle said families and taxpayers in the district would not be left out of the discussion.
"I don't think we would make any substantial program changes without consulting our public and our community," Battle said.
All board members emphasized that the first step is to identify options, some of which may never be needed.
"The earlier the administration can start on it, the better researched the outcome will be," board member Penny Kazmier said.
The current teachers contract, which lasts through Aug. 31, 2012, gave teachers a retroactive 3.9 percent raise for its first year and allowed the rate of inflation to determine base raises between 1 and 3.75 percent for the latter two years.
Church and fellow board member Nicholas Sauer voted against the contract, while board member Tim Hull abstained because he's related to a teacher in the district.