District 113 report shows nearly $4.8 million loss to pandemic expenses
A snapshot of how damaging the COVID-19 pandemic has been to school finances, Township High School District 113 released a pandemic profit and loss summary at Tuesday's board meeting.
Even adding proceeds from the American Rescue Plan - the third and final of the ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) payments - and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) funds, between fiscal years 2020, 2021 and 2022 as of March 31 the district has lost roughly $4.8 million due to the pandemic.
The district has released similar financial reports throughout the pandemic.
Fiscal Year 2020 saw expenditures outpace revenues by more than $465,000; in 2021 the deficit was nearly $3.7 million.
Fiscal 2022 expenditures through March 31 were $1.6 million. Paired with the estimated $928,237 expenditures remaining for 2022, that's approximately $2.5 million - actually less than the little over $2.6 million the district budgeted to spend in 2022.
The report indicated that the district has received $855,925 in ARP receipts with an additional $133,913 due. District 113 is scheduled to receive all of its FEMA funding of $825,975 this fiscal year, relief for 2020 and 2021 expenditures.
In his comments at Tuesday's board meeting, district Superintendent Bruce Law thanked Ali Mehanti, assistant superintendent for finance, for wrangling that FEMA money.
"Thanks to Ali and his team. Most school districts did not apply for this FEMA grant because it is very onerous to do it, hundreds of hours," Law said.
With the federal relief, Fiscal Year 2022 expenditures are still estimated to outstrip 2022 revenues by more than $670,000.
Much of the additional 2022 costs, an anticipated total of nearly $1.32 million, was due to adding full-time equivalency teaching positions during the pandemic.
An unforeseen $45,000 will be spent on synchronous teachers and approximately $103,000 more to Coordinator of COVID Response Suzy Spychala, but that was absorbed by a savings of more than $18.5 thousand in withheld DocuSign technology and a $280,000 savings by not hiring all the classroom assistants the district thought it would need.
A silver lining in the cloud of red was the $8,455 in Fiscal 2022 funds the district put toward a tent for homecoming.
And the FEMA money.
"We have still spent quite a lot of money out of our fund balance in order to respond to the pandemic, but less than we would have had we not gotten this FEMA grant," Law said.
"We'll continue to chase grants wherever we can and try to offset our costs."