U46, D300 pass 2011-12 budgets

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Updated: November 11, 2011 4:05PM

School boards in both Elgin School District U46 and Carpentersville-area Community Unit School District 300 approved their 2011-12 budgets at their regular board meetings Monday night.

But only one of those two budgets is balanced.

In fact, U46’s 2011-12 budget foresees Illinois’ second-largest school district taking in $11 million more than it spends this school year. That’s $487.3 million total in revenue.

And that income likely will continue to climb, the district has said — but expenditures likely will climb much more quickly.

The budget also includes several unknowns, such as salaries and categorical funding from the state of Illinois. The district is negotiating salaries with its unions, and the state is $9.6 million behind in its required payments.

Most notably, the Elgin school district eliminated neighborhood bus stops for its high school students this year, choosing to have buses pick them up at the elementary and middle schools nearest to their homes instead, to make up for Illinois’ continued cuts to transportation funding for schools. That change will save U46 between $750,000 and $1.25 million.

In District 300, officials have said that even if it receives all the money it is owed by the state for the past school year, its budget for the school year starts out $6.3 million in the hole.

And that leaves the district’s 2011-12 budget $500,714 short, according to the district. The budget includes $191.5 million in revenues and $192 million in expenditures.

That shortfall comes after the school board struggled to make about $6.1 million in sometimes-controversial cuts to its budget, falling short of the $8.3 million in reductions District 300 had targeted.

Cuts included 363 teachers, although all were called back after the district reached concessions with its unions.