Layoffs and program cuts are imminent at Lemont-Bromberek Combined School District 113A after Tuesday’s proposed referendum was defeated by taxpayers.
The cash-strapped district will move forward with the elimination of 70 staff positions, Superintendent Tim Ricker said during a phone interview Thursday, Feb. 4. Nearly 70 percent of voters rejected the proposed referendum that would have balanced the district’s $2 million budget deficit.
“We’re moving ahead with the cuts,” Ricker said. “The (School) Board signed a resolution (last month) instructing us to move ahead if the referendum failed.”
The district’s administration has been in meetings for the past two days working on a staffing plan for next school year, Ricker said. The layoffs, expected to save the district $3.17 million for the 2011 fiscal year, will be presented to the School Board for adoption at its Feb. 24 Board of Education meeting, Ricker said.
The position cuts include 42 certified staff members, 12 secretaries, 12 buildings and grounds employees and four administrative positions, according to a financial plan submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education last week. The layoffs will follow that plan, Ricker confirmed.
The administration is working on certified staff cuts first, because of legal requirements in their contracts, Ricker said. Once the layoffs are adopted by the School Board, the administration will then look at trimming programs, he said.
“Once you figure out what staff you have, you figure out what programs you have,” Ricker said. “You’ve got to get rid of that deficit spending and in order to do that, you’ve got to start with a staffing model for next year.”
An erosion of revenues, coupled with the district’s mismanagement of its working cash fund, has contributed to the financial difficulties. According to PMA Securities Inc., a financial adviser to the district, the situation began in 2006 when money was spent out of the working cash fund to pay for the Central School renovation. Ricker also has cited increases in expenditures for salaries, benefits, textbooks, programs and supplies.
School District 113A was placed on the state’s “financial difficulty” list in December. The district last week submitted a financial plan to the state board outlying a plan to balance the fiscal year 2011 budget and build fund balances for the next three years to eliminate short-term borrowing.
Many of the staffing and service cuts proposed in the financial plan include the contingency that if they referendum passed, they would not be implemented. With the referendum denied, the administration is moving forward.
The plan also includes enrollment projections for the next 10 years, an employee count, long-term debt, a cash flow analysis, expenditure assumptions, an educational impact analysis and course and program reductions.
The state board is expected to review the plan at its March meeting, but the School Board must adopt the layoffs before the end of February to remain in compliance with labor agreements, Wood said.
“They have notification requirements,” he said. “If we do not present the staffing plan for the next year in time, we would have a problem.”
The district’s fiscal years ends June 30. All cuts approved by the school board would be implemented July 1.
“The (financial) plan was put together with two options; one if the (referendum) passed, one if it did not,” Wood said. “With the referendum failing, we have to implement the plan.”
