Two more Lake County school districts-one in Vernon Hills, the other in Winthrop Harbor-will be on this year’s state watch list of districts facing serious financial trouble, local officials said Friday.
Hawthorn District 73 and Winthrop Harbor District 1 will be added to the list, Lake County Regional Schools Supt. Edward Gonwa said Friday.
And two other financially troubled school districts in the county-North Chicago Unit District 187 and Round Lake Unit District 116-will remain on the list for another year, he said.
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The latter two educate children from kindergarten through high school. Hawthorn and Winthrop Harbor have kindergarten through 8th-grade pupils.
A spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Education would not confirm or deny the placement of any districts on the list until Feb. 17, when the entire watch list will be announced.
The spokesman, Lugene Finley, also declined to discuss the total number of schools that will be on the list. There are 946 school districts in the state, and 162 of them were on the 1993 list. According to a news release from Hawthorn District 73, that number will be up when this year’s list is released.
“What you’re seeing happening is, across the state, more districts are approaching that status because of the increasing reliance on local property taxes for meeting budgets,” Gonwa said. “This is true in Lake County.”
Some other school districts, such as Antioch Community High School District 117, face severe financial problems, even though they were not on the state’s official list, he said.
A school district is normally placed on the watch list as an alert to look for ways to put its financial house in order if the state determines that the school’s ending cash balance on June 30 appears to be less than 5 percent of its previous operating budget. Chicago schools are not included in the count, since that system is overseen by a finance authority and, by law, must have a balanced budget.
Hawthorn Supt. Edward Noyes said he was more concerned about his district’s worsening financial situation than the fact it would be appearing on this year’s formal watch list.
Noyes said he was not surprised that the state is reportedly ready to cite Hawthorn in this year’s list because the financial situation there has been deteriorating in recent years.
“It could have come two or three years ago,” he said.
Parents of the district’s 3,200 pupils received a letter Friday about the reasons behind the district’s financial problems, he said.
A news release from the district cited four factors that contributed: Continued growth of pupil enrollment; the state’s cap on property taxes; increased costs of maintaining and enhancing instructional programs; and upgrading and building facilities.
Winthrop Harbor Supt. Kenneth Anton could not be reached for comment Friday.