St. Charles School District May Have Deficit Budget Next Year

The St. Charles School District may end up spending about $900,000 more than it will get in revenue next year, although officials say the budget for the 2011-12 school year isn’t yet final.

The district originally had a projected $2.2 million deficit, but voter approval of the tax-levy transfer Feb. 8 freed up $1.2 million to put toward operating expenses.

 Rick Radford, assistant superintendent of business said he’s not searching for other ways to trim the $900,000 because so much is yet unknown.

The district has not gone through negotiations with different staff groups, Radford hasn’t yet received a report on assessed value from the county, which will tell him how much local funding to expect, and it’s unclear how much funding the state will provide for various services.

“There’s a lot of what-if’s,” he said. 

At $71.8 million, the proposed budget for 2011-12 returns to 2009-10 levels, when the budget was $71.1 million.  In 2010-11 school year, the budget grew to $77.6 million – in part because of funds from the American Recover and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). 

The district received about $2 million in federal funding for various programs through the federal ARRA stimulus program. That money is gone as of next year.

 Local revenue, which makes up the bulk of the district’s funding, is expected to decline by about $1 million to $51 million. Last year the district received a one-time $1.25 million payment in lieu of taxes from Cullinan, which is developing the Streets of St. Charles at the intersection of 5th Street and Interstate 70. That one-time money won’t be there next year.

 The administration earlier this year took steps to cut the budget with the help of a committee that identified ways to save. The move to a will save an additional $350,00 and decision to have the should save $500,000.

 Other cuts that have already been built into this proposed budget are to:

-       cut spending on new textbooks from $790,000 to about $95,000

-       cut spending on technology equipment to $500,00

-       cut capital improvements from  $3.1 million to $1.55 million

Superintendent Randy Charles said looking at the proposed budget this year is less painful than it was last year, when the district cut transportation, eliminated 13.5 teaching positions, library aides, summer school, tuition reimbursements for teachers and activity buses.

Charles said in an e-mail those items won't be coming back next year. 

District teachers and staff still feel the pain of these cutbacks. One district librarian asked the board to consider bringing back the library aides when the financial outlook improves. Access to some of the libraries is more limited this year because there is just the one librarian available to work with a class of students, which means there's no one to help students who want to check out or are browsing.