With federal COVID-19 relief funds ending in the months ahead, Indian Prairie School District 204 officials are proposing to cut 30 teaching positions district-wide over the next three years.
The proposed cuts would likely not impact class size or core classroom teachers, according to Matt Shipley, the district’s chief school business official. He presented a five-year financial forecast, which included the cuts, to the district’s Board of Education at its meeting on Monday.
In that presentation, Shipley proposed that 10 teaching positions be eliminated each year for three years instead of cutting them all at one time as soon as the federal funding through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, grant program ends.
The ESSER grant program gave the district a little over $4 million each year, he said.
“We’re looking at gradually stepping down some of those extra supports we’ve provided over the last several years, whether that is social-emotional supports, various community engagements and different supports we were able to use ESSER funds to support in our buildings,” Shipley said.
The school board was not asked to approve a budget at Monday’s meeting, and the presentation was given for information only. Shipley said that district staff will work to present a budget for the next school year at the board’s meeting in August.
District officials have been planning for the end of ESSER funding and knew that the positions funded with it might need to be cut after it stopped, according to Shipley. However, teacher positions added to lower kindergarten class sizes, which were funded through ESSER, will not be cut, he said.
Since 2012, district enrollment has fallen while the number of district staff members has increased, Shipley’s presentation shows. He said that the 2025 school year would be the first in 10 years that staffing levels decreased if the cuts are approved.
“We wish we were in a position to continue to fund some of these positions, but this really is the reality at this time,” Shipley said.
In the next few years, Shipley said he expects enrollment to stop falling and hit a “floor” at around 25,000 students enrolled.
Birth rates are falling nationally, but people are moving to Aurora and Naperville in part because of the schools, according to Shipley. He said those facts combined means that enrollment should stay relatively consistent for the next several years.
During his presentation, Shipley said he asked departments to keep a “flat” budget, or the same as the previous year, to keep as many teachers as possible. Board President Laurie Donahue said that, because of inflation, flat budgets are functionally decreasing budgets.
“You’re basically asking people to do more with less, and I think that’s a common theme of what goes on in our district with us counting every single dollar and penny to make sure we’re putting it towards the resources to help our students,” she said.
With falling federal funding and stagnating state funding projected over the next five years, local property taxpayers will continue to be the most important source of revenue for the district, Shipley told the board.
Several board members, including Justin Karubas, said the state is failing to properly fund public education, specifically with its evidence-based funding formula.
“The formula was set in 2017, and the mandatory funding was $350 million, but that wasn’t adjusted for inflation, so we’re going to have $350 million paid for decades, and we’re going to keep falling behind,” Karubas said. “We’re going to keep putting in smaller amounts of money relative to 2017.”
Property tax rates are expected to stabilize, Shipley said. While the final tax rate will not be ready until the spring, he said he expects it will go down this year.
The projections he presented at the Monday board meeting showed that the district will have enough revenue to cover its expenses for the next five years without having to dip into its fund balance.
The district currently has more than the state-mandated fund balance, which is at a level equaling 25% of the district’s annual budget, so Shipley proposed moving some of that fund balance into the district’s capital project fund.
A facilities master plan completed recently will need around $800 million in funding to fully complete, with several hundred million dollars needed up front, and the district’s capital project fund is nearly depleted, according to Shipley.
He said projects that are funded sooner will cost less as their estimated prices will not increase due to inflation.
Some board members, including Mark Rising, were nervous about dedicating a part of the fund balance to capital projects.
“It’s easy to transfer, but building it back up takes significant time,” Rising said.
Shipley said capital projects are a good use of fund balance money because they are not recurring costs, and may even lower annual expenses. He said the district would never transfer out so much money that it cannot pay bills or its employees.
District administration is currently testing different funding sources for the facilities master plan, and more information should be ready for the board in May, according to Shipley.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
