Charlie Gorney - Story III

How do different districts deal with statewide budgetary issues?

Illinois’ budget crisis has nearly all state-funded programs and sectors, schools included, sacrificing to make ends meet. Yet some school districts, unlike the case of Galesburg, are still not feeling the heat.

The state of Illinois has been consistently lagging on payments to school districts across the state. But since different districts receive different proportions of state funding each year, the extent to which they can get into budget trouble varies just as much.

Hinsdale High School District 86 in Chicago’s southwest suburbs runs a district in which almost 95 percent of funding is derived from local sources, mainly property taxes, according to the district’s 2010 Illinois report card. And thus, the effect of the Illinois budget crisis on this particular district has been rather mild, according to District 86 Superintendent Nicholas Wahl.

“We’ve always had a balanced budget here. We’re strong, and we have a solid fund balance,” Wahl said. “We made some tough decisions in 2005 – 2006 which did not affect student programs, but it allowed us to have a strong budgetary position going forward.”

Galesburg School District 205, on the other hand, gets almost 44 percent of its funding locally, with about 40 and 16 percent coming from the state and federal government, respectively. So when Illinois hurts, Galesburg hurts too.

According to the Galesburg Register-Mail, District 205 laid off 78 teachers, staff, and administrators, constituting the largest cut in 27 years. This move was made in light of a projected $3.3 million shortfall in state funding and uncertainty about enrollment for the coming school year.

And though some of those positions were reinstated and the administration hopes to re-hire more employees, this illustrates some of the uncertainty associated with a schools system which relies heavily on unreliable funding sources.