The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school board approved its unbalanced $74.7 million budget, but not without dissent.
On Monday, the board voted 5-2 in favor of the 2001-02 budget, which has a projected deficit of $1.5 million. The deficit comes from the operating budget, the portion of the budget which includes employee salaries, teaching supplies, and the normal operating costs for the district and its schools.
Two board members voted against the budget, saying that it was irresponsible. Some who accepted it did so begrudgingly, promising to work out a better budget next year.
Board member Lisa Kupferberg told her colleagues she could not vote for the budget because the deficit might have adverse affects in the future.
“This doesn’t go away next year, it gets compounded,” she said. “I’m worried about what it will mean in the classroom next year.”
Kupferberg, who is one of three board members retiring in November, said she also did not want to leave a deficit for future board members to solve.
Several board members tried to counter Kupferberg’s negative views about the budget.
“The fact that this is a $1.5 million deficit this year doesn’t necessarily mean a larger deficit next year,” member John Chatz said. “We’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Board member Rosie Rees, who also will be leaving in November, joined Kupferberg in voting against the budget.
“I’m very troubled about where we are now,” Rees said.
This year’s budget shows a 2.6 percent increase from the 2000-01 budget, but there have been several changes that make comparisons to previous years difficult.
The main change is that Park School, D65’s special services school, was given its own separate budget in the summer.
The district’s overall budget — which includes bonds, interest and referendum funds in addition to the operating budget — is $97.2 million, with a $16.6 million deficit.
The large total deficit reflects voter-approved referendum funds received in the 2000-01 fiscal year. These funds will be spent on special projects such as the new education center, said Larry Shanok, the district’s chief financial officer.
School board President Walter Carlson expressed confidence in the budget. He asked other board members to remember that the operating deficit would be only about $750,000 if one-time costs were deducted. For instance, the district’s project to replace the roofs on most of its schools will be completed this year and will not reoccur in 2002.
In addition, D65 schools are in a stronger position than they were during a larger budget crisis in 1993, Carlson said. That year, the district faced a deficit in excess of $6 million.
“The money we have spent over the last eight years has gone to reduction of class sizes and adding teachers,” Carlson said. “We are in a different place than we were in 1993. This is a responsible budget.”
Superintendent Hardy Ray Murphy also said the current budget represented “real progress” from where the district stood in the early 1990s.
“I don’t see this as a doom and gloom sort of budget,” Murphy said. “I see it as a challenge. It is certainly not a budget with a lot of largess or a lot of waste.”
Some board members said the group hopes to get a jump on budgeting for 2002 by starting to plan this year.
Board member Betsy Sagan pointed to the board’s list of five main goals for this year, which include a positive budget balance in 2002.
“One of our goals that we agreed to is that we will have a balanced budget,” Sagan said.
D65’s fiscal year started at the beginning of the summer, so the budget for the current school year went into effect July 1.
