Dist. 220 identifies $2 million in budget cuts

Barrington Unit District 220 officials Tuesday night reached their goal to identify just over $2 million in potential budget cuts by March 15.

The cuts include a loss of 4.3 full-time certified positions, 10.3 full-time support staff and 54.5 stipends to oversee various after school programs.

“This is the least pleasurable thing that we have to do,” Board Member Penny Kazmier said of the cuts.

Board members carried on toward their original monetary goal despite an urging by the teachers union to reduce that goal to only about $1 million.

Union President Melanie Collins asked the board to protect current programs and services by reducing its amount of reserves to only 32.5 percent of annual operating costs from the current level of 34 percent.

Collins said that in a report on the reserves of other fiscally sound districts, most had reserves between 25 and 40 percent of annual operating costs.

She suggested that by aiming for the midpoint of that level — 32.5 percent — the board could reduce its amount of budget cuts by half.

Board Member Jeff Church pointed out that the report Collins was quoting from did not contain any recommendation on what a school district’s level of reserves should be.

Board President Brian Battle said the district also reached out to the union about the possibility of renegotiating its current contract, but that offer was declined.

The district had already identified $1.9 million in potential cuts going into Tuesday’s meeting.

Among the further cuts added during the night was the elimination of an associate principal and administrative assistant at Barrington High School to save $174,000.

The associate principal in that position now will be leaving the district at the end of the school year anyway, and the administrative assistant will be retiring, Superintendent Tom Leonard said.

Though cutting these positions won’t result in the layoffs of current employees, board members expressed their sympathies that other administrators at the high school would have to take on new responsibilities without a raise.

Leonard said he didn’t feel the high school had much room to cut at the administrative level, but that most of the district’s other schools had only one or a few administrators each.

The board will host a meeting specifically for public input and some fine-tuning of the proposed budget cuts at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 8 at a location to be named by this Friday.

The board is aiming for a final vote on the cuts at its meeting of March 15 in order to provide adequate notice to laid-off employees.

This is the third year in a row the district has had to make significant budget cuts, due to what officials describe as uncertainties in the economy and level of state funding.