Indian Prairie School District 204 is beginning to prepare for future years’ budgets, with the district providing an update to its school board last week on where its finances stand now, as well as some impending fiscal challenges.
The district’s Chief School Business Official Matt Shipley gave a presentation May 18 to the board, during which he shared that the district is looking at a one-time, nearly $5 million budget deficit next year that’s expected to balance out over the years to follow.
At the meeting, Shipley emphasized the importance of the district having “a sustainable budget over a significant period of time,” meaning it is looking three to five years in the future and “not looking to play games or to try and balance one year of a budget over another.”
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He also cited priorities like maintaining the necessary operating reserves, retaining alignment with the district’s strategic plan objectives, transparency and upholding its commitment to taxpayers not to raise its non-operating expense tax rate as a result of the bond referendum question passed by voters in 2024, which is currently funding a district-wide facilities overhaul.
Currently, the district is seeing growth in its tax base, Shipley said, with increases coming primarily from local property taxes, with state and federal funding expected to remain largely flat.
Increasing property values have allowed the district’s tax rate to be lowered, Shipley’s presentation said, and the district is anticipating some new commercial property in the coming years.
Recently, the district’s property tax extension came in with new property at $25 million above what the district had been projecting, Shipley said, which is set to add about $1 million to the district’s annual budget.
But expenses are also over what the district projected, Shipley said, because of things like substitute teacher expenses and special education transportation and out-of-district placements.
The district also saw a loss of a little over $1 million in Title I federal funding this year, Shipley said. That has to do with the poverty rate — based on census data for the area the district covers, not the district’s enrollment itself — dipping below 5%.
As a result, the district is planning on a net reduction of 20 employees, according to Shipley. Indian Prairie is planning to fund 25 less positions using these federal dollars, but some of those are being absorbed with other funding sources, and the district is also adding a small number of other positions. The district is anticipating a reduction in core classroom staffing needs, according to Shipley, because of a small decline in enrollment.
The district is on track for a balanced budget in 2026, Shipley said at the meeting, but is expecting to have a deficit of nearly $5 million for the 2026-27 school year.
However, looking to future years, the district is expecting to have balanced budgets and to run surpluses that will largely make up for next year’s projected deficit, according to Shipley’s presentation.
Going forward, the district is looking to some potential opportunities for operational savings as well, Shipley said, from things like LED and solar investments and some potential savings in employee health insurance plans.
At last week’s meeting, board member Catey Genc pointed to the reduction in staff for the coming year as a result of the federal funding loss, expressing concern about the impact staff reductions would have on students.
Superintendent Adrian Talley said the loss of federal funding is “impactful, there’s no other word around it,” but emphasized that the district looked carefully at which positions it is cutting and what the impact will be.
And board vice president Allison Fosdick said that the district can advocate at the federal level about this funding loss.
Board member Mark Rising pointed to the issue of “stagnant” state funding, and also asked the average cost increase for purchasing services, pointing to that as one source of the district’s deficit.
Shipley, in response, said those costs largely encompass custodial, food service and transportation costs. Transportation costs have been the main issue, he said, but the district has taken steps to reduce those expenses, like making sure it is routing as efficiently as possible.
“It feels like we’ve gotten to a point where maybe we’re … running out of things to pull out of that bag of tricks,” Shipley said about reducing transportation costs.
Board president Laurie Donahue also noted that the district is no longer going to provide busing for preschool, as a way to reduce costs.
As for other budgetary issues, board member Natasha Grover asked whether Indian Prairie had spoken with other districts about the issue of substitute teaching expenses, to which Shipley and Talley indicated that it was a broader trend being seen beyond District 204.
Donahue said at the meeting that the district put incentives in the recently-approved teachers contract meant to help keep teachers in classrooms and thereby reduce substitute expenses.
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And board member Justin Karubas expressed some concern about the district’s reserves going from about 35% of the district’s annual revenues to about 30% in the next few years.
“Reserves take a long time to increase, and usually they jump down quickly,” Karubas said. “We don’t want to have not enough money in our savings account (to) make it a problem.”
The district is planning to have a budget presentation in July, with plans for a public hearing and a vote by the school board on adopting the coming year’s budget in August.