Following a few years of budget cuts, the board for Oswego-based School District 308 has adopted a balanced budget for the 2019-20 school year, district officials said.
Board members in a recent unanimous vote approved a $204 million budget at a regular board meeting at Oswego East High School.
The budget projects $204.9 million in revenues and $204 million in expenditures, which leaves a $900,000 surplus, said District 308 Chief Financial Officer Christi Tyler.
The budget projects an estimated fund balance of $17.9 million.
The balanced budget comes after four consecutive years of discussions on budget reductions.
While the balanced budget is good news, the district at this point can’t restore some of the cuts made in the past, Superintendent John Sparlin said.
“We are not in a position to add back the things that we have cut and we are not in a position to lower class sizes,” he said.
Sparlin recalled the financial scenarios from 2016 when the board began to discuss budget cuts across the district. The financial forecasts projected budget deficits that would have worsened had the board taken a “do nothing” approach, he said about the cuts made over the past few years.
While the administration presented a balanced budget, the district will continue with past practices, Sparlin said. The low level of reserves will require the district to borrow funds or issue tax anticipation warrants to make payroll and pay bills at certain times of the year, he said. The district will incur the interest associated with borrowing money.
While the budget is balanced, the level of reserve funds – a little below $18 million – is not where it should be, he said.
“We know our reserves should be $40 million to $50 million for a school district our size,” Sparlin told the board.
The administration will present five-year budget projections to the board Oct. 7. The board will be presented with various budget scenarios including a do-nothing approach, what rolling back some of the past cuts would look like and what further cuts would do to the budget, Tyler said.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.