New Trier High School District 203 has a tentative 2017-2018 operating budget of $103.9 million, which, along with the district’s proposed non-operating funds, will be available for public review, and further district adjustments if necessary, until its scheduled final passage in September.
The total budget will probably stand at roughly $140 million, according to Chris Johnson, the district’s assistant superintendent for finance and operations.
The operating budget will make up roughly 60 percent of that, while 40 percent comprises capital spending, life-safety work and debt repayment, Johnson said July 18, the day after school board members approved the tentative budget.
The entire budget is set to be adopted after a Sept. 18 public hearing.
The operating section of the budget, which pays the district’s day-to-day costs, also calls for $107.6 million in revenue, nearly all of it from local property taxes, according to information Johnson provided board members July 17.
The operating budget is composed of the municipal retirement and social security fund, the transportation fund, the operations and maintenance fund and the education fund, Johnson said.
That section of the budget is balanced, with a $294,010 surplus even after an estimated $3.4 million in operating fund revenue is transferred to non-operating funds, he told the board.
The district’s debt service fund, which is used to pay down bond and other debt incurred by the district for various projects, makes up $9.9 million of the non-operating funds, Johnson said July 18. Revenue and spending in that fund match, he said, and each year’s debt service level is set by the county, via a predetermined schedule.
The education fund makes up 88 percent of all operating expenditures, Johnson said; operations and maintenance costs make up another 7 percent, while the transportation and retirement funds make up the final 5 percent.
As approved this week, the budget’s operating revenue tops the 2016-2017 budget’s amended level of $105.5 million. Spending proposed for 2017-2018 is closer to the $103.3 million in the 2016-2017 budget’s amended level, according to information that Johnson presented to the board.
Johnson’s presentation said salaries comprise 67 percent of the district’s operational spending, with benefits coming in second, at 12 percent, according to his board presentation. The remaining expenditures include capital project spending, purchased services, and supplies and materials.
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Salaries rose 1.6 percent over the 2016-2017 budget, according to Johnson’s board presentation, but benefits are expected to fall 10 percent.
New Trier administrators are still working on the remainder of the non-operating fund spending and revenue figures, Johnson said July 18, but he said he expected the final budget to be roughly $140 million.
Revenue for the Winnetka campus renovation project, in the capital spending fund, comes largely from the proceeds of the district’s 2015 $89 million bond sale, as well as from reserves transferred in 2017 from the operating fund reserves, Johnson said in a July 20 email.
Life-safety spending, on state-mandated repair or renovation projects, will be paid for by separate bonds the district sold for that purpose in 2016; the district will take in no new revenue this year in that fund, he said in the email.
In his report, Johnson said creating the 2017-2018 budget became a more accurate process this year, after the district began using a new finance software system, and a specialized financial projection system.
He said July 18 that the entire tentative budget would be available for review at district headquarters, at public libraries within the school district, and online at www.newtrier.k12.il.us/ within a few days.