Jacksonville District 117 appears to be ready to weather any financial storms that may lie on the horizon.
Superintendent Steve Ptacek told the school board at their February 19 monthly meeting that the district is in a financially sound position to weather any proposed cuts that may come from either the state or federal level.
Ptacek says there was cause for concern when he saw that Governor J.B. Pritzker’s proposed budget for the Illinois State Board of Education was trimmed off to the tune of about $122 million dollars that the state board had requested.
He says the cuts will go towards how the state reimburses what are called mandated categorical funds: “We are concerned when it comes to our mandated categoricals, and this is where the state reimburses us for mandated transportation (our busing) and many of our special education programs. Typically, we are reimbursed for those at about an 80% rate, but this year it’s dropped. I think we are getting somewhere around 70%. I might be a little off on that number, but definitely they are definitely not funding the mandated categoricals as much as they have in the past. The biggest concerning number that I read was that ISBE asked in their budget to cover the mandated categoricals at an increase of $142 million in the categoricals, and the governor’s budget only has a $19.9 million increase. Therefore, statewide, you are talking about a $122,000 drop in what was requested for increases. Since costs are going up, without increasing that much in the budget, our reimbursement rates are suspected to drop substantially.”
Ptacek says it matches similar anxiety of funding cuts that may be coming from the federal level. He says that there is a substantial enough fund balance in the district that would not effect staffing or programs for next school year.
Ptacek says the lack of federal title funding would cause problems over the midterm: “If we were to find out…we’ve had no indication of this, but if we were to find out our title funding would go away, I can honestly say that would not impact at all our staffing for next year. We have the funds to cover that. If it were to completely go away, which it might not or it might be reinvented in a new form [we don’t know], we would have to talk about those services, whether we would continue them moving on into the future. So, there is some anxiety, but as I told the board, we have a substantial fund balance. We’re going to be able to weather this storm. It does really have us focus on 2036-2037 when the South Jacksonville TIF goes away, and all the property improvements that have been done in the TIF that we’ve not seen an increase in property taxes would then come on to the tax rolls. Once again, that doesn’t impact the existing property taxpayers at all. It would be the tax rate that they are currently paying would then be applied to that property and then, the taxing bodies would get it. That looks to be a good relief spot in 2036-2037. We’ve got fund balance to last through that.”
Ptacek went on to say that the current anxiety and uncertainty surrounding state and federal funding does not change the size and scope of the Murrayville-Woodson school project. He says that some of the amenities that were looking to be added to the new school may be scaled back, but the project itself is still on schedule. Ptacek says they have scaled back services in other parts of the district and other “soft” purchases like new software to track buses in the district and a new staff survey software. He says the claw back on those items does not cut into services the district already provides to students.