By NICK VLAHOS
For The Weekly Post
BRIMFIELD – Late last year, the Brimfield School Board approved a 9% increase in the district property-tax levy. That might not be enough to keep the district in decent financial shape.
Brimfield Superintendent Chad Jones suggested a possible next step might be decreases in what the district offers.
“All options are on the table,” Jones said during a board meeting Feb. 18. “If revenues are flat or going down, we have to look at cutting costs.
“I don’t want to cut people or programs, but there’s only so much money in the bucket, and if the bucket is empty or half-empty, we have to make some hard decisions, or think about making hard decisions.”
Jones pegged his comments to the State of the State address Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker made earlier in the day. Pritzker proposed a statewide fee on social-media companies, part of an effort to raise $200 million a year for education, according to CBS News.
But Jones said Pritzker didn’t address state funding of services that school districts are required to provide. Those include transportation and special education. As of now, the gap between what the district spends and what the state reimburses is close to $200,000.
According to statistics Jones provided, Brimfield transports 450 students each school day, at an annual cost of $570,488. The state is reimbursing only $430,582. There are 15 special-education students who receive transport, at a cost of $147,299. The state reimbursement is $88,888.
“Over the years, a lot of the funding that’s supposed to be given to the school districts has not been given to the school districts,” Jones said. “Unfortunately, our district is in that category.”
Jones plans to continue to discuss the issue with local state legislators. No Brimfield cuts or new revenue streams have been proposed publicly.
There was no new business for board members to consider. They approved the only personnel item – the resignation of Ashlee Webb as Brimfield Grade School head cook, effective at the end of the academic year.
