District 220 starts talks about budget

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Updated: February 27, 2012 9:45AM

District 220 President Brian Battle opened Tuesday’s initial budget talks by mentioning an infamous remark about the making of laws and sausage.

“The making of laws like the making of sausages, is not a pretty sight,” 19th century German statesman Otto von Bismarck is quoted as saying.

“This is one of those meetings,” Battle said. “You’ll watch sausage being made.”

However, the opening salvos of future budget battles could already be seen.

“I want to make sure there aren’t deep cuts to our educational programs,” said board member Tim Hull during a meeting break.

Tuesday’s budget discussions centered on budget projections and “guesswork,” according to Battle.

Hull said much of the hard cutting and teacher’s salaries are still ahead.

Still, he said some programs already look vulnerable, such as the Chinese Immersion program, class sizes, specialized programs such as fine arts and team teaching practices.

Hull cautioned that none of them are on the chopping block yet but he views them as “vulnerable.”

After the meeting, board member Richard Burkhart said he was unhappy about the district borrowing 1.8 million in deferred debt, which a consensus of the board seemed to support.

“By borrowing, you basically mask where you are (financially), you’re just borrowing more money from the taxpayer,” he said.

Burkhart acknowledged the biggest portions of the budget process lay ahead but “this is the foundation and if you have a weak foundation you won’t have a strong result.”

The head of the Barrington Education Asociation, Melanie Collins, said she is “waiting for the actual documents” to come out on teacher salaries or cuts before making a judgement on the direction of this year’s budget.

The board does not have to pass a budget until Sept. 30 but if there are staff cuts, the board must give 90 days notice. So the board usually agrees on the major cuts by the end of March, according to district staff.

The district is running a surplus this year of about $1.6 million but would be running a deficit by 2014 if changes aren’t made, according to the Northbrook-based PMA Securities, which drew up a list of assumptions the board is reviewing ahead of budget approval.

The board made some changes to PMA’s forecast assumptions.

Instead of the consumer price index rising at a rate of 2 percent for the next four years, ending in 2016, the board agreed to raise the inflation rate estimate to 2.5 percent.

“It’s an impossible guess,” Battle told the board. “It’s is just guess work.”

The board then tied teacher salaries to the CPI figures but the final estimates were later discussed in executive session and will have to be worked out with the teachers union.

The board was also more pessimistic about general state aid, estimating it might be cut 10 percent in 2013 and 5 percent each of the next two years.

It also came in more conservative than PMA’s estimated need for summer projects in the district, lowering the budget from $3 million in 2014-16, to a gradual ratcheting up from $2.25 million to $2.5 million to $3 million in 2016.

New growth in the district, which reflects the value of taxable real estate, is estimated to remain flat at $12.5 million for the next four years, according to PMA assumptions.

Superintendent Tom Leonard said under PMA’s new assumptions, the district’s deficit next year falls from an estimated $2 million to about $200,000.

However, district officials cautioned many of the biggest budget cuts and budget realignments have yet to be made. The next meeting of the committee of the whole will be Feb. 7 and the next regular meeting Feb. 21.