Wednesday, July 2, 2008 10:27 PM CDT
Amid funding woes, school leaders look to cut budget
$2.8 million in cuts planned
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — Developing a multimillion-dollar budget is never easy. But it’s even harder when the potential income for the fiscal year in question could vary by as much as $1 million, said administrators in the Mattoon school district.
“It’s very difficult,” said Assistant Superintendent of Business Tom Sherman. “I can control the expenses; I can’t control the revenues.”
This lack of control — attributed largely to bickering in the state capital — has wrought so much uncertainty that Mattoon administrators will not bank on $1 million which has already been promised. Consequently, school district officials hope to slash the 2008-09 fiscal year budget by almost $3 million.
Administrators said there are good reasons for their pessimism. Last fiscal year alone, the state was tardy in submitting standard school aid payments and even later with aid increases passed by lawmakers about a year ago. Additionally, the school district was shorted about $500,000 on Medicaid reimbursements, funneled from the federal government through Springfield.
The Illinois General Assembly in May decided to increase the amount school districts receive for each student by $225. But Gov. Rod Blagojevich has yet to approve this, and Mattoon administrators said they aren’t holding their breath.
“We’re going to budget a third of (the increase) that’s currently out there, not knowing what (the governor) is going to do,” said Superintendent Larry Lilly. “We’re only assuming it’s going to be $75 (more) per kid.”
With approximately 3,200 students in the Mattoon school district, the legislature’s current per-pupil increase would result in an overall gain of $720,000 or so. However, if administrators’ conservative guess proves to be accurate, the additional income will total only $240,000 — a difference of almost a half-million dollars.
Also, President George Bush just recently signed a bill that will extend Medicaid reimbursements for school districts through April 2009. Admittedly making a ballpark guess, Sherman speculated Mattoon could collect between $400,000 and $500,000 in Medicaid reimbursements this fiscal year — that is, if the state government actually passes on the federal monies to Illinois schools.
“That money continues to be uncertain,” said Lilly.
“If you’re looking at what could happen with Medicaid and what could happen with state aid, that’s about a million dollars. But we’ve been burnt with what (Springfield) has told us in the past.”
In the meantime, administrators still have to come up with a workable budget. Proceeding with what Lilly called “extreme caution,” officials want to reduce expenditures in the new year’s budget by $2.8 million.
While no reduction in the current work force is planned, Lilly said the district may not fill some vacancies resulting from resignations and retirements. “Over the next year, we’ll look even harder at that, with all of the retirements we have” because of early retirement incentives, said the superintendent.
Principals also pared down their funding requests for each school building, which may mean fewer supplies as well as diminished programming: For example, administrators may “trim down” the Stretch Time afterschool program at Mattoon Middle School, said Lilly.
Some one-time expenditures in last year’s budget that will not be a part of the new year’s expenses also factor into the proposed $2.8-million budget decrease, said Lilly.
Sherman will present a proposed 2008-09 budget to the school board at its meeting Tuesday.
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
|
|
Lilly wrote on Jul 2, 2008 10:03 PM: