It’s going to cost a little bit more to be a Warren Blue Devil next year, as the Warren Township High School District 121 Board of Education Tuesday approved an increase in registration fees for the upcoming school year, raising the price by approximately $50.
The fees will help bring in some revenue for the district, which has been struggling financially.
The district attempted to get a referendum passed in the April 6 election which would have raised its limiting rate by .35%, bringing in $7.8 million more in tax revenue, but township residents voted against the proposal.
In the wake of that vote, the district has plans to eliminate 13 positions by next school year, and will tentatively eliminate freshman athletics as well as some afternoon and evening bus routes.
“Fees are part of our local revenue,” Superintendent John Ahlgrim said at the meeting, adding that he expects the topic to come up again at the district’s financial meeting on June 8.
The district’s registration fee will be approximately $545 for the 2021-2022 school year, according to Ahlgrim. He also said that the district’s registration fees typically increase at a rate of 10% a year.
Athletics and activities will stay at about the same price point, with athletics costing $240 and activities costing $50, according to Ahlgrim. Parking passes will see an increase of $20, going from $320 to $340 for the upcoming school year.
Ahlgrim said that the district rotates in increasing athletics, activities and parking fees — increasing the price of one per year.
“We have a process in place, a cycle by which the other three areas would increase one a year,” Ahlgrim said during the meeting. “Rather than increasing them all by a small percentage, we would raise them up, in this case $20 for parking, and then it would stay that way until 2025 or 2026.”
“The $45 or $50 that we increase on the registration annually amounts to $135,000 each year,” Ahlgrim added.
Board member Tony DeMonte, who was not in attendance at the meeting, issued a statement that was read during the meeting, expressing his opposition to increasing registration fees in the district.
“I personally cannot support it,” DeMonte said. “We are at $495 this [school] year for our registration fee, which is the highest amount of all Lake County high school districts.”
DeMonte compared Warren’s registration fees to the next three highest, and their rates of students who come from families with low incomes — $400 for Stevenson High School, which has a 2% student low-income rate; $330 for Lake Forest High School, which has a 1% low-income rate; and Libertyville High School, which has a 4% low-income rate.
Warren Township High School District 121 has a low income rate of 18%, he said.
“We potentially have many families just outside of that low-income threshold, who will have a hard time affording this fee to access their children’s’ public education,” DeMonte said. “There’s something about seeing the registration fees cross the $500 threshold that causes me to pause.”
For families that can’t afford the registration, there is a free and reduced waiver they can file, according to the district. There is also a deferred-payment plan, which would spread the payment out throughout the school year.
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“There’s no question that our fees are high,” Ahlgrim said. “It’s related to the referendum question, so I’m sure it will continue to come up as we have discussions about our local revenue in general, and how fees play into that going forward.”
Despite the disagreement from DeMonte, who was not able to vote because he was not at the meeting, the board ultimately voted to approve the student fees, including the registration fee increase, for the upcoming school year.