West Aurora School District 129 is looking at a proposed balanced budget for the 2026-27 school year, district officials said.
“We are projecting to add $104,000 to fund balances at the end of the 2026-2027 school year,” West Aurora School District Director of Finance Ryan Abrahamson said.
The tentative budget, presented to the school board for a second reading on Sept. 8, shows operating expenditures at $228 million, an increase of $6.8 million – or 3% – over the 2025-26 budget. Operating revenues are projected at $228 million, an increase of $5.9 million – or 2.6% – over the 2025-26 budget.
The West Aurora school board is expected to adopt the budget Sept. 21.
Approximately 48% of revenues in the proposed budget will be generated from property taxes, while state revenues have gradually increased to roughly 41% of the budget, district officials said.
“State revenues have slowly increased each year which is a good thing,” Abrahamson said.
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State revenues coming to the district for this school year are projected at $91.4 million, an increase of $1.6 million – or $1.8% – over the 2025-26 budget, he said.
“State revenues have increased because of the additional ‘tier funding’ that we are receiving through the Evidenced Based Funding that the state provides,” Abrahamson told The Beacon-News in a response to questions via email.
Expenditure assumptions for salaries in the proposed 2026-27 budget are at $124 million, an increase of $4.2 million – or 3.5% – according to district officials. Salaries and benefits represent 55% and 17% respectively of the operating expenditures.
“People are our biggest investment,” Abrahamson said. “On the expenditure side, salaries are up about 3.5% consistent over our groups.”
He added that the district is “going into the last year of the contract with our teachers’ union and will start negotiations this winter and going into the spring.”
At the start of last school year, the district had 240 days worth of reserve funds, approximately $145 million, Abrahamson said. The district expects to end 2025-26 with $147 million in reserve funds, enough to cover 233 days of operations. The number of days the reserves can cover is going down due to increased costs, he said.
“The reason that translates to fewer days is that the budget continues to grow which means the cost of a day increases,” Abrahamson said.
“Ten years ago, the district had reserves for about 25 days,” he said. “We have done a good job of adding to the fund balance which has put us in a good spot moving forward.
“We have capital improvements that we need, with specific mention of classroom renovations,” he said.
He said the administration is looking to encourage discussion about “possibly go into the fund balances” to address capital needs given the district’s healthy fund balances.
An updated capital plan for the district will be reviewed in the fall with a discussion on “targeted reinvestment,” he said.
“We will begin discussions with the board this year to develop a plan to strategically reinvest fund balances into improving our learning environments. This will be a multi-year plan to provide flexibility for any unanticipated changes to revenue as the state faces significant financial pressures,” Abrahamson said.
“There are districts that are projecting deficit operating budgets,” West Aurora School District Associate Superintendent Angie Smith said. “That’s not where we are and that’s not where we plan to be. What you may see in the 2027-2028 budget is a plan of reinvestment out of our fund balances,” Smith said.
“We are at a point now where we feel some targeted reinvestment would make sense to get us where we need to be from a facility standpoint,” Smith said.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.