RB High School budget in the red for 2007-08

Riverside-Brookfield High School will run an operating deficit this year, and a request for a tax increase, while not imminent, is looming in the next few years.

Last week the Riverside-Brookfield Township High School District 208 School Board unanimously passed a budget that projects an overall deficit of $1.9 million. However, $1.5 million of the deficit comes from the cost of building the new vocational education building across Golf Road from the school. Because that building is physically separated from the high school, the district had to sell specific bonds to pay for the construction last year. While the money came in last year, it is being spent this year.

But even without the cost of the vocational education building, RB will run an operating deficit this year, although Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann said that he expects that, at the end of the fiscal year, he expects the deficit will be less than $400,000.

“We think there is a little contingency built in [the budget],” said Baldermann. “We think at the end of the year we’ll be about $330,000 [in deficit].

About $150,000 of that deficit is the result of unexpected costs for new special needs students. RB is spending more this year to meet the needs of students with special needs, principally for tuition at special schools. RB is obligated by law to pay for tuition and for more full-time personal special education aides at RB.

RB has sufficient reserve funds to cover the deficit, but at the end of the year RB’s reserves are expected to be cut by more than half going from nearly $3.7 million at the start of the year to just below $1.75 million. But by the end of the 2007-08 school year RB’s reserve will be down to roughly 7 percent of the total budget. A reserve of 33 percent is considered ideal, according to RB Business Manager Chris Whelton.

That means RB will probably have to seek an education fund tax increase some time in the next few years, Baldermann said.

“At the earliest fall 2008 and as late as spring 2010,” was Baldermann’s prediction of when RB would have to ask the voters of the district for more money.

District 208 school board President Larry Herbst agreed that he would like to wait until RB’s nearly $63 million dollar renovation and expansion is completed before asking the voters for more money. He said that he thought RB could make it until 2009 before it needed to seek a tax increase. Herbst said that RB would try to pinch pennies and look for savings during the next two years.

“We just have to do our best to try and keep it under budget,” said Herbst. “We’re trying to keep it down for the next two years to not go into a referendum.”

RB has not had an education fund tax increase since 2000. In 2006 voters approved a $58 million referendum to pay for bonds that are financing the renovation and addition.

RB’s per pupil expenditures are remaining consistent and have actually gone done a little in recent years if adjusted for inflation, Baldermann said. In 2006, RB spent $13,378 per student.

But RB’s enrollment keeps increasing. This year about 1,535 students attend RB. In 2000, the enrollment was about 1,000. In 2006, the enrollment was 1,407.

The deficit in the education fund, which pays for day-to-day operating expenses of the district, is projected to be $581,386 in this year’s budget. RB’s total operating budget this year is projected to be $21.8 million.

“Almost half a million dollars of deficit spending, that’s a concern,” said Baldermann.

The board has begun to take some steps to save money wherever it can. Baldermann suggested that RB drop out of the ED-RED lobbying organization which lobbies for schools before the state legislature and save the $5,000 to $8,000 it has to pay to be a member.

“This is the first place we can save some money,” said Baldermann. “In my opinion, if I had to choose between spending money on lobbyists or in the classroom, I’d rather spend it in the classroom.”

RB has also hired a new law firm to fight large property tax appeals that have cost the district substantial sums over the past few years. This summer J.C. Penney won a $120,000 property tax rebate for its North Riverside mall store.