Schools in Highland District 5 facing deficit budget

Highland schools will be operating with a deficit budget next year, but it won’t require a deficit reduction plan, according to school officials.

The budget for fiscal year 2020-2021 for Highland schools’ operating funds — which includes education, operations and maintenance, transportation and working cash — is $26.89 million with expected revenues of $26.72 million, creating a shortfall of $174,175.

The two operating funds in negative are the educational fund, which covers most of the salaries and educational costs of the district, and the transportation fund.

Tim Bair, business manager for District 5, said this isn’t the kind of budget the district is accustomed to seeing.

“Fortunately the fiscal policies we’ve put into place the last few years are going to help us out,” he said, and he was hopeful the district would be back out of deficit spending in a year or two.

The transportation fund ended up with $374,429 more in spending than in income. Bair said in part, the deficit is due to the fact the district went to remote learning last spring, and their funding is based on usage from last year.

“That’s part of the problem,” he said. “But the bigger problem is that the state continues to pro-rate our revenue.”

Over the last five years, Bair said, the state has pro-rated its payments to the district by about $1.3 million.

“We’re going to have to keep an eye on that one,” he said.

In general, he said, the state has paid about 85 percent of what it owes District 5.

The educational fund was also in deficit by $44,106.

Under the Illinois State Board of Education regulations, a deficit reduction plan is not required if the ending fund balance is three times larger than the shortfall. Estimated ending fund balance for the four operating funds will be $9.91 million.

Other funds include pension obligations, capital projects, life-safety projects, legal expenses and others.

2 Highland students test positive for COVID-19

In other news, Highland Superintendent Mike Sutton’s weekly letter to parents reported two students tested positive for COVID-19 last week, one at Highland Elementary and one at Highland High School. That required 19 additional students to quarantine.

The second quarter is about to begin, which gave parents the option to change from in-person to remote learning or vice versa. Sutton reported 17 students will switch from in-person to remote, and 118 from remote to in-person.