District 95 may hike student fees

Lake Zurich parents may be asked to dig a little deeper to cover a host of rising costs, including for light bulbs, in the 2010-11 school year, officials say.

They aren't ordinary bulbs. They are special bulbs used in projectors Lake Zurich Unit District 95 installed in its schools.

"We're installing projectors in the classrooms," Assistant Superintendent Jeff King said. "Bulbs cost $200 to $250 every two years, that adds $50,000 just for the bulbs."

District 95 school board members will consider a proposal to raise six student fees when the committee of the whole meets Thursday at 7 p.m.

The school board raised fees last February for the 2009-10 school year.

The student registration fee increase is proposed to cover the cost of the projector bulbs, King said. The projectors will be in almost every classroom next year.

Fees for elementary lunches, driver's education, transportation, replacement of IDs, and summer school tuition are also set to grow under the proposal.

"I'm a parent." King said Wednesday. "I want to up (costs) as minimally as possible, but I need to meet these budget differences."

There will be no budget gap next fiscal year, King said, but technology, payroll and special education costs will contribute to expenses growing by more than $3 million faster than revenues annually after that.

District 95 has already made spending cuts, including closing Charles Quentin Elementary, reducing staff, reducing copier and paper costs and changing maintenance contracts.

"We've done a lot of digging into efficiencies, and I can't do a lot more of that," King said.

At some point, those cost reduction measures make too small an impact on the budget, he added.

Under his proposal, basic registration would increase by $15 to $160 at the elementary schools, and by $20 to $195 at both middle schools and to $235 at Lake Zurich High School. Kindergarten registration cost would remain $115 next fall.

King is also asking the board to bump up the cost of elementary lunch by 10 cents because the district loses 5 to 7 cents on every paid meal. The student transportation fee would rise to $450, even though the district's cost is nearly $625 a year per student.

Driver's education would rise to $100 from $50.

King said the district loses money on those programs and needs to recoup some of the cost from parents.

The cost of summer school sessions would also increase by $5, excluding driver's education which would remain the same as during the school year.

The student ID replacement fee would rise by $5 to $10, to deter seniors from giving away their IDs to lowerclassmen to leave campus.

Under the proposal, the cost for participating in sports, band and other programs will remain the same. The yearbook cost will not increase.

The student fees were originally on the agenda for January's board meeting, but the item was tabled until the board could discuss the fees at the committee of the whole meeting, Board President Kathy Brown said.