The District 117 school board approved its fiscal budget Wednesday.
The board members approved a conservative budget with underestimated revenues and overestimated expenditures.
Chief Financial Officer Jamie Hadjan said right now the budget has a deficit of $2.7 million, but said that is not likely to stay the same over the year.
Hadjan said she is estimating $33.9 million in expenditures and only $31.2 million in revenues.
“We have these higher expenditure and lower revenue predictions, and we hope to meet in the middle at the end of the year,” she said. “We set it up that way purposefully.”
The operation fund reserves about 72 percent of its funds for salaries and benefits, including a 3 percent increase in salaries, 8 percent increase for health and 10 percent increase for vision.
Hadjan said the district has used this conservative approach for years in order to account for any major problems with its funding.
“You never know what’s going to happen with the state,” Hadjan said.
Currently, the state is saying it will fund general state aid at a 92 percent rate, but Hadjan said the district is only budgeting for 79 percent in the case that does not happen.
In the past three years, the district has not received about $3.5 million in state-aid funds.
Also, Hadjan said this budget includes some expenditures related to the first bond repayments that will be due in January.
Because the full cycle for the one-cent sales tax will not be complete by the time the first payment is due, Hadjan said there will not be enough to cover the full payment amount, so the district will cover a portion of it through its general fund.
In the future, the one-cent sales tax funds will cover the full payment.
“We knew going in that it wasn’t going to be enough,” she said.
Superintendent Steve Ptacek said the district is in a good place, financially.
“Our ending budget always ends up looking better than our original,” Ptacek said. “During the referendum, I kept highlighting that we’ve had a good fund balance because of a pattern of financially responsible budgeting.”
Ptacek said by setting up their budget this way, the district can maintain its level in the fund balance, or possibly increase it.
The board also approved an agreement with PMA securities for $2,000 a year to oversee the district’s debt repayment and paperwork.
Hadjan said there is a large amount of paperwork required by the district that would make it difficult without some guidance.
If the district were to do it on its own, Hadjan said there could be significant consequences in the future when the district tries to sell bonds.
Ptacek agreed.
“They would act in an advisory role,” Ptacek said. “With this district’s lack of knowledge in these procedures, $2,000 annually is not a lot.”
Board member Steve Cantrell was also recognized by the Illinois Association of School Board as a master board member.
