Known unknowns to start U-46 budget talks
Bereft of federal stimulus money, Elgin Area School District U-46 will have almost $17.5 million less to spend next school year.
The U-46 school board took a first pass at the budget for the 2011-12 year Monday, even as huge expenditures remain unknown.
It is clear, though, that revenue will drop. U-46 will not have more than $12 million in federal stimulus funds because that program has expired. The district is expecting to get only about 75 percent of the funds it typically gets from the state to cover areas such as special education and transportation.
In the tentative budget, which will change several times before the board votes on it in September, U-46 is projecting $464 million in revenue, down from $481 million in the amended 2010-11 document.
In the first draft for 2011-12, expenditures are expected to rise slightly from $463.2 million to $464.4 million. That, however, is a provisional number heavily dependent on the outcome of ongoing negotiations with all six of U-46’s employee unions.
Right now, the budget shows salaries flat for most employee groups. For example, teacher salaries for 2011-12 are budgeted at nearly $142 million — exactly the amount in the amended budget for the current school year.
But that doesn’t necessarily reflect any desire from the board or administration to freeze employee salaries, officials said. Rather, those numbers will remain the same until negotiations are concluded.
“We’re going to wait until negotiations are over, then we’ll start dropping in the (real) numbers,” Chief Operating Officer Jeff King said.
Finance officials do know that some employee benefits will cost more next year. For example, the tentative budget assumes the cost of employee health insurance will rise by 9 percent.
At the moment, U-46 projects a deficit of $335,649 next year. That’s basically a balanced budget because that amount is less than one-tenth of one percent of U-46’s projected budget.
That figure will change, though, as officials plug in the final contract amounts and state funding — two huge unknowns on either side of the district’s balance sheet. The board will get revised numbers in June.