The Warren Township High School District 121 Board of Education approved a tentative budget on Tuesday which leaves room for changes before a final spending plan is put in place.
“The budget is fluid,” said Christine Green, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services.
A final budget is scheduled for consideration at the board’s September meeting.
Under the tentative budget, the district estimates that it will have $115.8 million in revenue, and $129.3 million in expenditures. Over the next month, Green said that she doesn’t expect the revenue number to change much, but there might be a difference in the expenditure amount as the district is still “working on salaries.”
“There’s still things popping up over the last couple of days,” she said. “I’ve had people saying, ‘I want to order this, but it’s more expensive than it was the last few years.’ We’re still working on those items, and still firming up numbers for the final budget in September.”
Despite the projected $13.5 million gap, Green said that the district has no plans to increase student fees. She added that the district’s evidence-based funding from the state will be increased by $122,000.
Salary and insurance cost increases led to increased expenditures for the district, and Green added that she is budgeting for expanded purchasing of new classroom furniture, and $4 million for a new roof at the district’s Almond campus. The roof project will be broken into three phases, and this fiscal year’s budget will cover the first phase, she said.
One of the other major expenditures over the upcoming fiscal year includes more than $12 million in improvements to the locker room at the district’s O’Plaine campus. While there is more than $12 million in the district’s budget to complete the project, bids came in at $10.8 million.
“Most of the locker room costs will come out of this year’s budget,” Green said.
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The locker room update project, which will be taking place throughout the school year, will see the basement locker rooms at the O’Plaine campus replaced, to ensure that the locker rooms will no longer have to deal with flooding issues or sewage backups.
One of the school’s tennis courts will be removed to make way for the new locker room, which will also occupy space in what is currently the campus’s south parking lot.
Before the meeting, members of the Board of Education attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the new locker room in the O’Plaine parking lot.
“This week, they’ll be taking down the tennis courts’ fencing,” Green said. “Around the first, they’ll start excavation and take out the asphalt, the curbing and concrete, and they’ll start digging the foundation.”
She said that in mid-September, a concrete foundation will be put in for the locker room addition. The district estimates that the project will be done by next summer.
“We’re moving along,” Green said.