Dist. 203 budget ready for your review

Naperville residents can now get their eyes on Naperville Unit District 203’s proposed budget.

The four board members present at Monday night’s district meeting gave preliminary approval to a $241.6 million budget for Fiscal Year 2011-2012. The document will now be on display for a month at each of Naperville’s three libraries, district headquarters and online.

The district’s total proposed budget for the upcoming year is $241.6 million, which includes $224.8 million in operating expenses — an increase of 2.6 percent over the current school year’s budget.

Dave Zager, assistant superintendent for finance. said the increase can be attributed mostly to about $600,000 in one-time expenses to purchase Special Education Individual Education Plan System software and a new Employee Time Management System and Special Education Individual Education Plan System.

“I believe those purchases will lead to operating efficiencies in the near future,” Zager said.

The remaining $16.8 million is split between $13.2 million for construction costs and $3.6 million for debt service.

Employee salaries account for 79 percent of the operating budget and are .75 percent higher than last year’s budget, while benefits are 8 percent higher due to higher medical insurance costs.

The number of certified staff members has been reduced by the equivalent of about five full-time employees, due to changes in enrollment.

Roughly 83 percent of the district’s revenue is from property taxes. The average taxpayer in District 203 is paying 1.1 percent more than last year. Another 9 percent of the district’s revenue is from the state.

Zager said the most budget impact will be felt by the loss of federal economic recovery stimulus, which was about $2.3 million last year. Of that, $335,000 was spent on salaries and $130,000 on services that have been absorbed into this proposed budget. Other federal funds were expended on capital purchases and nonrecurring expenditures.

“When you look at what’s happening within this budget, there are those things that are normal operating things that we do and people come to recognize as part of the budget,” said Superintendent Mark Mitrovich. “There are also other things like the maintenance of buildings and the unique items brought in because of technology. All of that is being wrapped into this budget as opposed to special event-type funding. So a lot of what’s going on here is positive.”

The school board will host a public hearing and final board vote on June 20.