Dist. 300 faces budget deficit in 2010-2011 school year
Community Unit District 300 will need to make additional cuts to balance its budget for the 2010-2011 school year.
Cheryl Crates, the district's chief financial officer, on Monday presented a preliminary budget that shows district's deficit swelling from $4.6 million to $6.3 million.
The $1.7 million difference is due to the hiring of more teachers than planned and the hiring of two dozen teacher aides to meet state standards, Crates said.
The district hired 25 additional teachers, which cost the district about $1.25 million. and also brought in 24 teacher aides, adding $500,000 to the budget.
Crates also said the district will likely close the 2009-2010 school year with a $2.85 million deficit and the state still owes the district about $6.5 million in categorical funding for areas such as transportation, special education and bilingual education from the 2009-2010 school year.
"I am pretty sure the state will pay us what it owes from 2009-2010," Crates said. "But I am concerned if it will pay us in 2010-2011 ... The state will eventually catch up, but it affects our cash flow and we have to borrow money."
Crates said the district expects to receive about $18 million in categorical funding for the 2010-2011 school year.
The district has already slashed about $9.3 million from the 2010-2011 budget, including $2.7 million in layoffs, $1.4 million from transportation and $1 million each in support staff and salary concessions.
About 70 of the 180 teachers who were laid off at the end of the last school year were recalled before school started earlier this month.
The latest version of the budget does not include suggested cuts or concessions, but Crates said the district will begin evaluating programs in the coming weeks.
The budget is available for review on the district's website, d300.org. A public hearing is scheduled at the district's Sept. 27 board of education meeting. The school board is also expected to approve the budget at that meeting.