District 54 adopts 2019-20 budget
The District 54 School Board adopted its 2019-20 budget after a public hearing at its August 8, 2019 meeting. District 54 expects to spend $283,680,418 during the 2019-20 budget year and receive $271,770,202 in revenues.
District 54 developed the 2019-20 budget based on the following parameters:
Revenues
• Property taxes for levy years 2018 and 2019 are based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which was 2.1% for the 2018 levy and 1.9% for the 2019 levy.
• Federal aid, state aid and interest income are projected to increase slightly from 2018-19 revenue.
• Local revenues will remain consistent due to the fee structure approved by the board, which is consistent with the prior year.
Expenditures
• Salaries for 2019-2020 are based on projected savings from people retiring at the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year, as well as any raises to returning employees.
• Benefit costs are projected based on 2018-19 actual expected costs and an increase expected in 2019-20 of approximately 4.5%.
• There will continue to be a freeze on overall cumulative spending in supplies, purchase services and capital outlay. The only exception is in the Operations and Maintenance Fund, where cost of service increases cannot be controlled, and in the Education Fund for planned textbook or technology adoptions. In addition, in 2019-20 a large addition to budgeted expenditures was due to additional expenditures for Innovate 54 learning modifications and for summer construction.
• Tuition costs are budgeted the same as 2018-2019, but are highly subject to fluctuation depending on what special education services need to be outsourced.
• District 54 will issue no new debt and has been debt free since Dec. 1, 2011.
Individual Fund Summary
Fund Revenues Expenditures
Education 224,036,398 231,682,022
Operations and Maintenance 27,628,100 26,252,968
Bond and Interest 40,000 0
Transportation 12,040,679 13,202,820
IMRF/Social Security/Medicare 7,024,485 7,488,915
Working Cash 948,070 5,000,000
Fire Prevention/Life Safety 52,470 53,693
To view the detailed 2019-20 budget, visit the District 54 website at http://sd54.org and click on the budget link in the Aug. 8 Board Brief.