Oct. 07--Waukegan School District 60 school board members voted to approve a $210.5 million budget for the 2015-16 school year Tuesday evening.
The budget leaves the district operating at a roughly $1.7 million deficit but expenditures held relatively steady compared to the past two years while revenues increased slightly, said Brian Luosa, District 60's director of finance and business services.
While the district has reserves to cover the deficit, by the end of the year, there will be about $1.2 million remaining in the education fund, where expenditures are budgeted at $161.2 million this year, and just $12,412 in the operations and maintenance fund, where about $8.2 million in expenditures are budgeted, according to the district's budget summary.
"Financially we're doing okay but I am getting concerned about the fund balances dropping. We'll have to address that this year," Luosa said.
Luosa said he's not been part of the discussion on how the district will rebuild those balances but he and district spokesman Nick Alajakis said a new "zero-based" budgeting strategy helped them add new programs while holding expenditures relatively steady.
Rather than rolling over past expenses, district administrators had to meet and justify each expense based on the district's priorities, Luosa said.
"I think we found some duplication in some areas once we brought everyone together and understood who's covering what," he said.
Among the new programs being funded this year is a technology program at the high school that will eventually give each student a personal laptop for use in class, expected to cost about $2 million this year, Luosa said.
Full-day kindergarten in 11 classes at five schools is adding about another $500,000, he said.
According to Alajakis, the opening of a charter school within the district's boundaries cut about $2.1 million from what the school would have received in state funding. The LEARN Charter School Network won Illinois State Charter School Commission approval to open for the 2015-16 school year earlier this year.
Still, Luosa said the district's cut of state funding has increased this year. The district will receive about $95 million in general state aid, up about $7 million, Luosa said.
lzumbach@tribpub.com
