And so it is with District 200, whose board faces the daunting task of having to cut approximately $6.7 million from the upcoming budget at its meeting on March 24.
Meanwhile, the district has gone all out on its website to allay parental concerns regarding changes in the curriculum, busing policies and activity cutbacks.
The board has made assurances that class sizes will remain relatively close to the status quo and that art and music programs will not be affected.
Elementary school children will continue with daily physical education classes, and middle school elective programs will remain relatively unscathed.
Finally, school boundaries will remain the same, and no children will be forced to switch schools.
Where then will the cuts be made?
The district’s special finance committee recommends that the deficit could be eliminated by freezing teachers’ salaries, reducing stipends for teachers, modifying benefits for administrators and imposing additional fees on parents.
In calculating the deficit, school officials assumed administrative salaries would be frozen for the 2010-11 school year and that teachers’ base salaries would remain the same.
The teachers, however, must agree to any pay freeze because they are represented by a union, and the district and the teachers union are in the process of negotiating a contract.
If they agree on an experience freeze, it would generate about $1.5 million in savings, and if there was no salary boost for additional credits or degrees, it would save another $1 million.
Over and above a pay freeze for the teachers, finance committee members are recommending the consideration of a 10 percent reduction in the $3 million in the total stipends that teachers receive for coaching sports, supervising students in the lunchroom, and similar non-academic activities.
Whether or not these pay freezes will save teachers’ jobs is still up in the air.
A portion of the administration’s cost-reduction plan would eliminate 20 full-time teaching positions at the elementary schools, thereby saving an estimated $1.2 million.
In addition, the district could save another $2.0 million by eliminating 25 full-time teaching positions at the four middle schools and eight full-time teaching positions at the two high schools.
Moreover, parents may be required to pay higher fees, administrators may be required to contribute to their health insurance premiums, and the district may consider asking voters to approve a property tax rate increase.
The budget woes of District 200 and other school districts have already begun to cause some collateral damage. The Village Chronicles has learned that a number of vendors and creditors of the district and other school districts are being paid slowly for their goods and services, or in some cases not at all.
One source told this reporter that he and other vendors and merchants were beginning to require payment up front from school districts with whom they have dealings.
Who would’ve thought it?
