As layoffs loom at many public colleges and universities around Illinois while the state budget stalemate continues, the president of the largely state-funded Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora said the school is “too important” to shut down.
“We’re too important to Illinois and the world to fail,” IMSA President Jose Torres wrote in a statement on the school’s website. “While we’re not ‘too big to fail,’ we’re ‘too important to too many people to fail.'”
Torres told the Beacon-News in January that the selective, residential high school was at a “critical” point, and by the end of March could owe more in debt than it has in its bank accounts if money did not start flowing again from the state.
Though the state still has not passed a budget for the current fiscal year, the school remains open. Vice President of External Engagement Jeff Margolis said the school expects to get through the end of the year and is “planning for all contingencies” for next school year.
He said the school, generally, now owes more in unpaid bills than it has in its accounts.
Roughly 80 percent of IMSA’s budget comes from the state. The school’s faculty and staff are state employees and are receiving salaries like other state employees, Margolis said, which covers a huge portion of the school’s expenses. But the school has not received the rest of its state funding, and isn’t paying for many other services.
In early March, the school owed more than $2.5 million in debt, including $1.04 million for facility operations and $777,837 for food service, Torres said in a statement.
He said the school is relying on the understanding of vendors who are owed money to continue operating. For vendors that will not provide services without payment, Torres decides whether to pay the vendor or do without the service.
The school had already reduced staff by the equivalent of about 12 full-time positions last June in preparation for expected budget cuts, Torres said.
Margolis said the school has received no indication its relationship with vendors will change in the near future.
The school has prioritized classroom and educational expenses, and postponed spending in areas such as marketing, buying technology and some facilities expenses, he said.
“Our primary objective is to make sure the students maintain a level of excellence in the classroom,” he said.
Among Torres’ reasons why IMSA is “too important” to close was the value he said the school provides locally, nationally and globally. He highlighted a list of “notable” alumni, which included CEOs and professors.
He said interest among prospective students in IMSA remains high. A preview day for prospective students and families in January was one of the best attended, he said. And an admissions committee recently reviewed about 600 applications for the class of 2019, which Margolis said is on par with previous years.
Margolis pointed to testimonials from students, who talked about IMSA’s role in teaching them to think in a different way and help them become better people and students.
He said the school works with students and educators from across Illinois who then apply their skills to industries throughout the state, helping the state’s economy.
“We know there’s a lot of difficult decisions being made at this time and there’s no perfect answers,” Margolis said. “We’re just very interested in how we can be part of the solution.”
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Torres said in the statement the school is looking at its fiscal future. In December 2014, he established a committee on fiscal sustainability to look into ways IMSA can decrease dependency on the state and have more control over its financial future.
The committee is expected to finalize recommendations by June.
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