School board faces tough financial forecast
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[During Tuesday night's regular meeting of the Unit No. 3 School Board, Superintendent Dennis Smith delivered some upsetting news regarding the financial status of the state and how it may affect the school district.
"There's not a school board in Illinois that isn't going to have to spend some time talking about the fact that the train is derailing in Springfield and we're going to bear the brunt of it," said Smith. "It's bad. And it's going to affect everyone in the state."
Smith said in a memo included in school board members' packets that superintendents have been advised to construct their 2012-2013 budgets with the anticipation of not receiving the final two state aid payments. For Harrisburg, one payment is about $460,000, making the expected total loss in revenue from the 2011-2012 school year around $900,000.
Smith said he received a memo Tuesday morning from State Superintendent Chris Koch providing a breakdown of how local school districts would be affected by budget cuts in education funding at the state level. House committee members are currently focusing on a cut between $260 million and $300 million, but that number will be much higher if additional savings are not accomplished by reducing pension costs and cutting Medicaid.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Smith. "Nobody knows what's going to happen in the next two weeks in Springfield."
If the House passes a $258 million budget cut, the school district would receive $913,722 less in general state aid next year. If they pass a $500 million to $750 million cut, the district would have to construct a budget with almost $2 million less in general state aid.
"I have no idea what the scope of this is," said Smith. "What we're going to do about it is probably for the June and July meetings."
Smith said he has to have the completed 2012-2013 budget filed by Oct. 15. A draft of the budget will be available at the August meeting and will be on display for a month before being put before the board for approval. But until some decisions are made about state funding, it will be difficult to draft a budget. In addition, there are concerns some decisions at the local level will also affect the district's funding.
"If there is a TIF III, that could have a significant impact on us," Smith said, in reference to the City of Harrisburg's plans to create additional tax increment financing districts in the city, which divert taxes from taxing bodies like the school district and put them in TIF funds.
During Tuesday night's meeting the board also spent a great deal of time discussing a proposal to realign custodial services in the district. The goal of the policy is to have three custodians at each school, in addition to a district overseer.
"This was put together to address a district problem - lack of coordination in the district," said Smith.
Board member Kevin Dowdy said he thought the new alignment would provide accountability for janitorial positions, but some school administrators seemed opposed to the plan.
Smith explained that the lead custodians in each school would be union positions, unlike the current head custodians.
"It's a coordinating position not a management position," he said.
In the end, the board voted in favor of the realignment.
In addition, during the meeting the board discussed the realignment of teachers in the district. As part of their budget cuts, the board voted not to replace several retiring teachers. As a result, some classes may have to be eliminated, personnel may be assigned to positions through a bidding process and there may be involuntary transfers of staff from one position to another.
In order to save one elementary school teaching position, Crabb offered the board an alternative option. The board had previously considered imposing a more traditional junior high schedule at the middle school with savings of up to $200,000, but decided to put the change off until at least the 2013-2014 school year. Crabb offered to put the new schedule in place next year with the hope it will save a teaching position at the elementary school.
The board agreed to look at a more detailed version of Crabb's proposal at the next board meeting, which visibly upset some teachers in the district who are anxiously waiting to find out whether or not they are going to be reassigned to a different teaching position for next year.
During the meeting:
--First grade teacher Patti Collins and fifth grade teacher Jake Dixon brought two students each to the meeting to demonstrate to school board members how the students have been using their new iPads in their classrooms.
--District technology coordinator Cindy Black said the district is moving its email provider to Gmail over the weekend. Though everyone's email addresses will stay the same, she warned there will be up to 72 hours of downtime between Friday and Monday in which email may not work.
--West Side Primary School Principal Scott Dewar said the Young Author's presentation will be at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the school and invited anyone to come support the young writers.
--Harrisburg Middle School Principal John Crabb reminded the board that the eighth grade promotion ceremony is May 22.
--The board informally approved a request from Harrisburg High School Principal Karen Crank to offer summer school to high school students again this year. She said around 30 students could benefit from the program and likely will not graduate if they don't offer the summer elective courses.
--The board voted to create a kindergarten through eighth grade guidance counseling position in lieu of a social worker position. The board decided to wait until next month to vote on whether or not to hire Linda Smith for that position. There was some confusion about a contractual obligation to allow HEA members to review the employment if there was only one bid for the position.
--The board voted to keep Michael Boglino and Stephanie Betts as the media specialists in the district and to place them at East Side and West Side schools. The middle school media center will be staffed by media aides.
--The board approved an agreement to use Kemper for district auditing.
--IBC was awarded the bakery bid for the district, Prairie Farms was awarded the dairy bid for the district and Midwest Waste won the trash bid for the district.
--The board accepted the resignations of Kim Wilson as a pre-kindergarten aide and Brooke Harbison as the assistant track coach at the high school.
--The board voted to hire Stephanie Cluck as the middle school cheerleading coach.
--One student was expelled and one student had a suspension extended for bringing drugs to school.