District 54 releases tentative 2019-20 budget

The District 54 School Board released a tentative version of its 2019-20 budget at its June 20, 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 tentative budget at this time 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 2017-18 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.

The tentative budget will be available at the District Office from July 1 through August 8, 2019. On August 8, 2019, a public hearing on the budget will be held at 7 p.m. in the boardroom of the Rafferty Administration Center, 524 E. Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg (prior to the School Board meeting that evening). The School Board is expected to adopt a budget at its August 8, 2019 meeting.

To view the detailed 2019-20 tentative budget, visit the District 54 website at http://sd54.org and click on the budget link in the June 20 Board Brief.