By Rumasa Noor
Staff Writer
Since the state unveiled its budget proposal this year, public school districts have become increasingly concerned about dealing with the funding cuts.
Dave Alexander, Yorkville Elementary School District Administrator, said the state’s proposed budget does not allow them to have any new revenue for the upcoming school year.
“We are already in a situation where our budget is squeezed,” Alexander said. “We are wanting to do a cost of living salary increase for our employees, teachers and support staff, and that makes it difficult when we get no new revenue so we have to find other places and other areas to cut.”
In the Yorkville school board meeting on June 23, the board explored different possibilities to overcome the cuts.
The board contemplated freezing staff salaries, reducing insurance benefits or cutting some of the programs offered, Alexander said.
“We opted not to do those cuts that degrade our school or take more away from our employees,” he said.
Alexander said they also had to delay certain projects that were scheduled to be taken care of this year.
The school district had planned to refinish the gym floor, seal and restripe the parking lot and replace the school’s 40-year-old bathrooms sinks.
“We are having to take money from our reserves or our fund balance in order to make the budget work,” he said. “You can only do that for so long before that’s depleted.”
He also said it’s disappointing to see that the legislature has proposed to increase the revenue per pupil for voucher schools.
“They set the amount at $7,200 per pupil in a K-8 school and $7,800 per pupil in a high school, but yet the public school open enrollment transfer amount is $6,635,” Alexander said. “We have a lot of open enrollment and we could use that revenue if we would match what the voucher school students get.”
He said if their budget would match that of the voucher schools, they would have no financial issues.
“It just appears that this legislature is trying to punish public school in favor of the private schools,” Alexander said.
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