Dist. 220 budget cuts all but final

Nearly two months into a process of identifying $2 million in budget cuts, Barrington Unit District 220 board members heard no further protests from parents or students Tuesday and only a handful of concerns from district employees.

This occurred despite the fact that Tuesday’s meeting was called largely to get a final sampling of public input before the proposed cuts are made official March 15.

The board, in fact, made further changes to the list of cuts, but mostly ones that whittled down nearly $91,000 in cuts identified above the target $2 million goal last week.

By the end of the night, the net cuts to staffing included 1.8 full-time teaching positions, 10.3 full-time support staff positions, 0.8 full-time administrative positions and 41.5 stipends to oversee various student programs.

The teachers union reiterated its position of last week to reduce the cuts to only $1 million by using $1 million of the district’s more than $30 million of reserves.

Union President Melanie Collins also called on the administration to inform any and all teachers who may be personally affected by cuts on March 15 to be told this week.

Superintendent Tom Leonard said the administration would make every effort to meet that request.

The net cuts, while concentrated on for budgeting purposes, do not fully reflect the number of individuals who could be notified of layoffs over the next week.

In fact, 7.4 full-time teaching or counseling positions were identified to be cut. However, 5.6 such positions are being added back in — a combination of 3.5 literacy coach positions and 2.1 additional contingency positions for areas where student population may demand it.

Of the 7.4 full-time certified positions being cut, 6.7 would have been recommended simply because of decreasing student population apart from any other budget issues, administrators said.

District officials are citing the overall cuts as necessary — for the third year in a row — because of lingering uncertainties in the economy and the level of state funding.

Though the actual annual budget isn’t approved until September, school districts are required by law to inform staff who may be laid off at the end of the school year by late March.

“It does not mean that all those people wouldn’t be rehired back,” Leonard said.

He added that it’s common for school districts’ financial and student population outlooks in mid-March to seem to require more layoffs than becomes the case a couple months later. But the law requires a more conservative approach to layoff notification in March.

The vote on the budget cuts is scheduled to occur at the board meeting at 7:30 p.m., March 15, in the cafeteria of Barrington High School, 616 W. Main St. in Barrington.