After Evanston-Skokie School District 65 has spent years chipping away at solving its ever-dire financial deficit, Interim Superintendent Eric Witherspoon is proposing a rip-off-the-bandage approach.
“…Year after year, no matter what we do in an incremental way, what we see the next year is that we have more deficit because we have more to address,” Witherspoon informed School Board members Sept. 14 at their Committee of the Whole meeting.
The solution, Witherspoon said, has to be radical to once and for all “end this annual crisis situation.”
In order to gain long-term financial stability, D65 administrators are now proposing cutting roughly $20 million from the district’s budget, along with the closure of two additional schools. (The Board voted in January to close Kingsley Elementary after previously voting to shutter the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, both of which officially shut down in June.)
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The district will also look at cutting “purchased services” to increase cash on hand and examine non-mandated programs, transportation systems and teaching positions to improve current staff-to-student ratios, Witherspoon, D65 CFO Eric Miller and Assistant Superintendent Stacy Beardsley told the Board Monday.
“Our enrollment peaked in 2016-2017 and we’ve experienced a steady decline since,” Beardsley said during her presentation, noting a 16.9% drop in enrollment in the last five years alone.
According to Beardsley, the district’s current 16 school building occupancy rate rests at just 66%, reflective of a “reduction in school age children in our community” and the number of decreasing youth under the age of 13, per 2020 U.S. Census data.
But as school population has been going down, expenses have not, Beardsley noted.
“Nearly 75% of our budget is dedicated to staffing,” she said, but data collected over the past several years shows that the district’s “staffing models have not shifted as quickly as our enrollment,” especially in regards to non-certified staff members who are not required to hold an administrative license.
According to CFO Miller, staffing salaries continue to outpace revenue, with compensation growth projected to increase by nearly $9 million in 2027.
Benefit costs have also increased by 12% annually and the costs of special education and transportation services remain high, Miller noted.
The 2026 financial year ended in a roughly $5 million loss, with an additional $5 million loss forecasted for 2027, according to district data projections.
With declining enrollment, high administrative costs, significant facility repairs on the horizon and state and federal funding support up in the air, administrators clarified that drastic cuts remain the only solution.
“Current growth trends are just not affordable any longer,” Miller said.
“The phased approach [plan] just simply has not been helping us,” Witherspoon added.
“That’s why we’re going to bring you a comprehensive approach.”
Witherspoon said the Board can expect to see a conclusive financial plan presented at its upcoming Oct. 13 meeting, when administrators will outline where exactly cuts can be made and when district families and stakeholders can expect to see the new changes implemented.
“When we bring this budget to you, I just want you to know that it can be the last year that we have to face this kind of, really I’ll call it a crisis feeling in our current situation…it’s going to give us an opportunity to focus all our attention on what we know is the real importance in this district, what goes on in those classrooms,” Witherspoon said Sept. 14.
“It doesn’t mean that we won’t still have to be good fiscal managers, it simply means that instead of this cloud over us…we can really now be doing our future planning.”
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“I just want to name that this is a huge number,” Board member Andrew Wymer said following the budget presentation.
Wymer added the severity of the proposed cutbacks will likely impact many, but he’s hopeful “immediate stabilization” will allow officials to regain some of the public’s lost sense of trust in the district.
“We can help lead our community through this really hard time over these next few months. I’m committed to being one of seven board members in that moment.”
“I’m sitting here with a lot of feelings, I think the one that I’m landing on is hopeful,” said Board member Mya Wilkins.
“Realistically, I know that change is hard. I know that these aren’t easy decisions. I know the $20 million [cut] is a big number…but I am so, so looking forward to the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“This is, I think, an opportunity for us as a Board to really stand up for our community, stand up for our students,” Board member Sergio Hernandez voiced.
While many officials clarified their support of Witherspoon’s forthcoming plan, Board member Maria Opdycke said the news was “difficult” to sit with, given that the Board “went through a process like this” last year and “the numbers that we were given in terms of what needed to be cut and how we went through that was underrepresented.”
“As we move through this process, it’s important to me that we have a clear understanding of what meeting a budget requires, and that we stick to our budget…we only have as much money as we have,” Opdycke told administrators.
Witherspoon said officials plan to host three informational sessions with district families next week to discuss concerns surrounding the pending financial plan, Sept. 22, Sept. 23 and Sept. 24 at Chute, Haven and Nichols Middle School.
“I am going to be asking the Board that by November, certainly by the end of November, that we agree to approve and set this plan in motion,” Witherspoon said Monday.
“I can tell you at that moment, the crisis will be over and we will be in deep and vigorous implementation of what’s now needed, because we’re not going to any longer be in a deficit budget.”