The Unit 5 School Board met on Wednesday evening and approved a resolution that would put an item on the Nov. 8 ballot that would raise property taxes to provide the district $12 million more each year. Unit 5 says this amount would provide basic funding and provide some opportunities.
In the interim, before bond monies could potentially be received, the district will continue using borrowed funds to pay for operations through 2024/2025 and balancing the structural budget deficit by using reserve cash. According to Unit 5, without the additional funding they will have to increase class sizes, reduce programs, and reduce extra curricular activities.
Cities 92.9 examined the districts five year budget forecast and believes the situation is much more dire than that. Based on our analysis we believe the district might be forced to cut 200 jobs.
If one reads between the lines regarding increase class sizes, reduce programs and reduce extra curriculars one can see that Unit 5 realizes it will have to cut jobs. However, the district hasn’t quantified the number of jobs that would be lost or for that matter what class sizes would be increased to, what programs would be reduced or what extracurriculars would be cut.
Also at their meeting Unit 5 presented its tentative budget for 2022/2023 to the board. The structural deficit is forecast to be $11.7 million which the district will pay from working cash.
The $11.7 million deficit is lower than the $13.2 million the district used in its five year forecast. That’s good news for all of us. We can only hope that the rest of the five year forecast is that conservative as well.
However, in the middle of this budget crisis, it is concerning that Unit 5 is hosting a job fair. The district is looking to hire as many as 50 people interested in becoming paraprofessionals and substitute teachers.
It appears inconsistent, at the least, to be asking tax payers for an increase while facing potentially laying off a significant number of staff members to be adding a significant number of persons to the staff at the same time.
