FOREST LEAVES

FOREST LEAVES — Aug. 4, 2004

State budget boosts aid to local schools

BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE

STAFF WRITER

All three local school districts will gain money under the new state budget, according to figures from the Illinois State Board of Education.

General state aide to schools rises $154, bringing the base funding to $4,964 per student. That, and changes in state grants, will mean $710,868 more to Oak Park District 97, $491,560 to Oak Park-River Forest High School District 200 and $73,656 to River Forest District 90, the state School Board announced last week.

Legislators budgeted $389 million in new state funding for schools, most of that for the hike in general aid. The budget also adds $30 million to early childhood grants and an additional $12 million to the Americans with Disabilities Act block grant. Lawmakers also reallocated some existing school funds, including $6.3 million saved by cutting the state achievement tests for writing and social science (see story below).

The hike in state aid to District 97 will go toward helping the district close its budget deficit, Finance and Operations Assistant Superintendent Gary Lonquist said.

Its tentative budget of $63.1 million for this fiscal year includes a deficit of $2.6 million. The draft was calculated using last year's state aid figure, so will change under the increased funding.

Lonquist said he still needs specific information on grants to add those figures to the budget, and expects the state will provide those soon.

"To the extent that these numbers hold up, that's going to be good," Lonquist said. "Generally speaking, this is going to be favorable."

The increase in income to OPRF will almost recover the nearly $600,000 in education fund revenue it lost last year through business property tax appeals, Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Witham said. Most of that loss came from the Rush Oak Park Hospital Medical Office Building.

The hospital is paying back some of that reassessment appeal, and the school will receive $195,000 over the next three years.

"It will just help us to kind of maintain what we have, and work toward keeping our promise of not asking for a referendum again until we said we would," Witham said.

District 200 officials vowed during their successful 2002 tax hike referendum campaign that they would not ask voters for another property tax increase until at least 2008, Witham said. The high school is trying to push that date back further.

Most of the money District 90 receives comes from local property taxes, District 90 Superintendent Marlene Kamm said, and little comes from Illinois coffers. The state estimates District 90 will receive $446,923 in general aid this school year. The district's total draft budget this year comes to $16.1 million.

Under the state's formula, communities with higher total assessed value get less money.

Kamm said a prorated reduction in categorical grants will likely mean District 90 will lose some money there.

"But we don't get a lot to begin with," she said. "We get some categorical money, but it's very small."

Chris LaFortune can be reached at clafortune@pioneerlocal.com.