North Cook News

Schaumburg Community Consolidated School District 54 issued the following announcement on June 21.

The District 54 School Board released a tentative version of its 2018-19 budget at its June 21, 2018, meeting. District 54 expects to spend $279,305,347 during the 2018-19 budget year and receive $267,251,916 in revenues.

District 54 is constantly evaluating its expenditures to keep cuts away from the students in the classroom. We developed the 2018-19 tentative budget at this time based on the following parameters:

Revenues

• Property taxes for levy years 2017-2018 are based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which was 2.1 percent for the 2017 levy and 2.5 percent for the 2018 levy.
• Federal aid and state aid are expected to increase slightly from the 2017-18 revenue. A new state funding model is expected to lead to $2.5 million more in revenues.
• The district also received an extra $2 million from this year’s early childhood grant.
• Interest income is projected to increase from the previous year because of the federal rate increases.
• Local revenues will remain consistent due to the fee structure approved by the board, which is consistent with the prior year.

Expenditures

• Salaries for 2018-2019 are based on retirement projections of 15 employees retiring at the end of the 2017-18 fiscal year, and the effective raise to employees of step and lane changes.
• Benefit costs are projected based on 2017-18 actual expected costs and an increase expected in 2018-19 of approximately 3 percent.
• There will continue to be a freeze on overall cumulative spending in supplies, purchase services and capital outlay (frozen since 1998).  The only exception is in the Operations and Maintenance Fund, where cost of service increases cannot be controlled, and in the Education Fund for planned textbook or technology adoptions.
• In 2018-19 a large addition to budgeted expenditures was due to the expenditures for 21st century learning modifications (previously approved by the board) and for planned building additions at Churchill and Dirksen.
• Tuition costs are budgeted the same as 2017-2018, but are highly subject to fluctuation depending on what special education services need to be outsourced.
• District 54 will issue no new debt and has been debt free since Dec. 1, 2011.

The tentative budget will be available at the District Office from July 2, 2018, through August 9, 2018. On August 9, 2018, a public hearing on the budget will be held at 7 p.m. in the boardroom of the Rafferty Administration Center, 524 E. Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg (prior to the School Board meeting that evening). The School Board is expected to adopt a budget at its August 9, 2018 meeting.

Click here to access the detailed 2018-19 tentative budget memo.

Original source can be found here.