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player ready...The appearance of Elgin-area Unit School District 46 on the state’s financial watch list Wednesday was viewed by school officials as further proof of the need to pass a $172.8 million tax-increase referendum measure.
U-46, which is anticipating a $26 million deficit, is banking on voter passage of the referendum proposal March 15 to accommodate an increasing number of students, to maintain district programs and staff, and to wipe out the deficit.
“It’s very sad for the district,” school board President Janet Korman said of U-46 being added to the watch list. “It’s placed a lot more importance on the referendum.”
The school district, which educates 30,000 students at 42 schools, is hoping for passage of the two-part bond and property-tax referendum measure to pay for construction, equipment and staffing of a high school and five elementary schools, and to renovate existing buildings.
If the referendum proposal fails, the district says it will make $12.5 million in cuts, eliminating 218 teaching and support staff positions, and reducing such programs as art, music, physical education classes and library services.
District officials blamed their financial problems on tax caps, reduced state funding for schools and delayed payments from the state to the district.
“We did make some cuts and responded to (those factors) as best we could. But we could never cut deep enough or severe enough to avoid this situation,” said Gordon Schulz, assistant superintendent for finance.
Also on the state’s watch list is Riley Community Consolidated School District 18 in unincorporated McHenry County. That district has been on it since the list’s inception.
Removed from the list this year were two other McHenry County school districts: Harrison School District 36 in Wonder Lake and Woodstock School District 200.
The Riley district, near Marengo, remains on the list because tax caps have kept the one-school district from reducing its approximately $100,000 deficit, said Roy Asplund, the superintendent and principal.
Asplund estimates it will be at least five years before the district is removed from the list.
“We’ve run a very frugal program. We haven’t added staff, we haven’t added supplies,” he said. The district’s budget is about $1.3 million. “We don’t particularly relish being on the watch list. That’s one issue we continue to monitor, but we don’t feel that because of that we can’t continue to provide a good program.”
The McHenry County school districts no longer on the list credited different approaches for their removal.
Voters played a major role in taking Harrison District 36 off the watch list by passing a $500,000 working cash bond issue last year, said Supt. Terry Welke.
Welke said passage of the working cash bond issue allowed the 500-pupil, one-school district to beef up the working cash fund so that it could loan money to the other three main funds to reduce deficits, which totaled about $300,000 last year but dropped to $135,000 this year.
For Woodstock District 200, it was a case of “doing nothing whatsoever,” admitted Assistant Supt. Ray Reynolds.
“We were taken off simply because our financial situation didn’t get any worse,” Reynolds said. “It was simply the passage of time.”
He said the district, which has 4,600 students in eight schools, was placed on the watch list about two years ago.
“We have been running a deficit of about $3.2 million annually for several years, but it hasn’t gotten worse because our board has adopted a balanced budget,” Reynolds said. “However, we still have a cash flow problem. . . . We won’t eliminate the deficit without cuts or a sudden windfall.”