More Cuts Loom For School District 300

Despite coming off a hard year of cuts, Community Unit School District 300 is preparing for a dim financial forecast in 2010-2011.

The CUD 300 School Board recently approved a $194 million operating budget for the 2010-2011 school year that carries a $6.3 million deficit. A federal jobs bill signed by President Barack Obama in August, which sends an additional $1 million to the district, which educates over 600 Lake in the Hills children, will lower that debt to $5.3 million. The school board will vote on allocating the $1 million at its meeting on Monday.

School board members and administrators spent the past year slashing costs, cutting staff and eliminating programs – even turning school thermostats down -- in the hopes of minimizing the inevitable debt facing the district. But it's difficult to pay the bills when the state's check is not even in the mail.

"The state is broke," said Chief Financial Officer Dr. Cheryl Crates.

As a result, Illinois never sent the $6.5 million owed to District 300 last school year, and it has yet to pay the district the $5 million earmarked for the 2010-2011 school year. And, with no other significant signs of additional revenues coming into the district, school officials are sharpening their pencils in preparation for cutting costs even more in the upcoming year.

"The state of Illinois essentially gave itself an extension last year, and said we're not going to pay you what we owe you for the 2009-2010 school year until the end of 2010," said Communications Supervisor Allison L. Strupeck. "If they haven't paid last year's (payment), how are we to expect they're going to pay this year's? We're not confident any state money will come in by December 31st."

After preliminary staff cuts in spring and final rehires over the summer, CUD 300 in total slashed 114 teaching positions, increased classroom sizes, eliminated music and physical education classes for kindergarten students and dropped some high school elective courses. Teaching staff reductions cut $2.7 million from the budget. Crates said district officials hoped staff reduction savings would be greater, but layoffs resulted in $1.2 million in unemployment costs and $2.5 million in teacher overload pay – the amount of money CUD 300 pays to teachers whose classroom sizes exceed the district's capacity standards.

Cutbacks didn't stop at the classroom.

In all, CUD 300 removed $8.1 million from transportation, administration, teaching, support staff, supplies, services, salary concessions and miscellaneous funds.

Transportation expenditures were cut by $1.4 million by eliminating busing for the Preschool For All program, redesigning the parochial routes, eliminating busing for the Elgin Community College partnership, eliminating busing for Ombudsman Alternative Education and changing school bell times at DeLacy School.

Administrative and support staff costs were scaled back $1 million by eliminating the assistant principal position at Gilberts Elementary School,  the construction manager post, electing not to fill the Hampshire High School divisional position and cutting four secretarial, five custodial and 13 paraprofessionals jobs.

 About $1.1 million in supplies and services were slashed, which included scratching plans to expand technology-related equipment in the high schools and plans to expand safety-related equipment and services. Also, several reductions were made to the human resources department and to supplies for the middle school exploratory program and custodial departments.

Another $942,000 in miscellaneous costs were cut by reducing pay rates for daily and long-term substitute teachers, reducing school building temperatures by two degrees, restructuring the summer school program and opting not to replace an old driver's education car.

About $1 million of salary concessions were taken by school administrators, custodians, secretaries and other non-union employees.

Administrators agreed to pay 15 to 25 percent more for insurance, take three furlough days with no pay, forfeit reimbursement for tuition fees and an overall average take-home pay reduction of 4.1 percent.

Secretaries and custodians agreed to pay freezes, eliminating overtime pay, taking three furlough days with no pay and accepted a 4.5 percent decrease in their pay and benefits. Non-union workers agreed to pay freezes, eliminating overtime pay, three furlough days and overall 4.4 percent reduction in pay and benefits.

Despite all the cuts, most remaining teachers will enjoy pay increases this year. According to stipulations in the teachers' contract, educators could reap between 1 to 8 percent pay hikes, depending upon their years of service, position on the contract schedule as related to taking advanced coursework and overload pay. The average teacher salary will rise 6 percent. Overall CUD 300 will pay $4.4 million more for teacher salaries this school year. And teachers' aides will see an average pay raise of 4.5 percent.

In June, the nearly 1,400 teachers of Local Education Association of District 300 (LEAD) union, refused to make $2.2 million in salary concessions to help the district reach its saving goal brought on by the state's fiscal crisis. Had they agreed to a freeze on pay hikes, the $4.4 million in teacher pay increases could have greatly offset the projected $6.3 million deficit.

With $1 from the federal jobs bill, the deficit is expected to drop to $5.3 million. The federal aid, earmarked specifically to pay teachers' salaries to help schools retain educators, likely will offset part of the $2.5 million overload pay, and won't bring any additional teachers back to the classroom, Crates said.

LEAD's contract with the district expires in June 2011, and administrators expect negotiations to begin soon.  The school board is expected to explore possible reductions in retirement benefits for LEAD members, and eliminate all extra pay opportunities. Strupeck estimates another $6 million will need to be slashed next year.

"When we were making cuts last year, we were trying not to reduce whole programs, and not touch the classrooms," Strupeck said. "This coming year will be even harder not to touch the classrooms."