Plainfield School District 202 board approves 2021 budget

The Plainfield Community Consolidated District 202 school board approved its 2020-2021 budget during a meeting this week with a significant expected increase in pandemic-related expenses.

The district’s budget expects about $12,000 less in total revenues than what was expected when a proposed budget was published in July, according to a news release.

The approved budget includes about $203,000 more in total net expenses than originally anticipated, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Costs include $2.4 million more in cleaning and safety supplies and the initial $777,000 debt payment for nearly 17,000 laptops bought to help students with remote learning. The district has continued remote learning this semester.

District officials anticipate potentially needing to use fund balances or possibly decreasing staffing costs through attrition to reduce or eliminate the projected deficit.

In total, the district expects a budget deficit of a little more than $6.1 million, although the costs for the construction of an additional elementary school, Wallin Oaks, makes the deficit climb to about $29.7 million.

The district said in a presentation of the budget that the revenue for construction of Wallin Oaks was received this year but will be spent next year. This creates “the appearance of a larger deficit than we truly face,” according to a district document.

District 202’s total approved 2020-2021 budget, including debt service and capital projects, is $365.4 million, up $39.5 million from last year’s total, or about a 12.1% increase. Still, the construction of Wallin Oaks accounts for about $23.1 million of that increase.

District 202 serves more than 26,000 students and has about 3,200 employees at 30 schools. It’s the fifth largest district in the state.

About a quarter of the students in the district are considered low-income, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s annual report card. More than 40% of the student population in District 202 is non-white.