Concern over double-digit reductions in Waukegan Community Unit School District 60’s cash reserves over the past three years prompted the Board of Education to ask key administrators to sharpen their pencils.
Learning that cash reserves dropped $28.2 million, from $92.3 million to $64.2 million in the past year, during a May 13 budget workshop, board members asked Superintendent Theresa Plascencia and Associate Superintendent for Business and Financial Services Gwen Polk for a plan.
When the board gathered for its second budget workshop on June 18, Plascencia and Polk explained plans to cut spending by $11.5 million for the fiscal year starting July 1.
Though the board will not vote on the budget for the 2026-2027 school year until September, Plascencia, Polk and their teams are working to cut spending while maintaining academic and safety standards, as well as ensuring current employees keep working.
Amid spreading community concern, Plascencia sent an email to the school community on Friday explaining the financial situation to make sure they were informed and to maintain calm through the summer and when school starts in August.
Explaining a drop in enrollment and uncertainty about funding from the federal and state governments, Plascencia also said in the email that decisions were made over the last six years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic to reduce taxpayers’ burdens.
“As enrollment changes, the level of staffing and resources needed across the district changes as well,” Plascencia said in the email. “For six consecutive years, the board chose not to increase the property tax levy, which helped ease the burden on local taxpayers.”
Not only did the board keep the property tax levy flat for six years, but Polk also said that when the budget for the current year was approved in past years, the unwillingness to increase the levy and then rebate the taxes kept the district at the same base.
By law, taxing bodies like school districts can increase the levy by no more than the lesser of 5% or the increase in the gross domestic product (GDP). By leaving the levy as well as the base flat, Polk said, it limits the amount of future increases.
“At the board’s direction, we kept taxes level for six years, and the loss we had was about $46 million,” Polk said at the June 18 workshop. “We’ll never get that base back. This year, we did raise the taxes.”
With teacher pay significantly lower than the money earned by instructors in other Lake County school districts, the board approved a 20% salary increase for the teachers in January, 2024. Polk said that put another strain on future budgets.
“We increased salaries by $27,052 in fiscal year 2024,” Polk said. “We recognized that if we (did) this, tough decisions would have to be made elsewhere.”
Polk said the district is not in danger of running out of money, but it does need to stop relying on reserves as much as it has in the past few years. When approximately $75 million came from the federal government during the pandemic, it gave the district a boost. It had to be spent by the end of last year.
“We knew when (COVID relief funds) went away, we were going to have to feed off our reserves; there was no way we could continue the services we had,” Polk said.
Plascencia said the savings of $11.5 million are estimates based on individual school budgets, departmental budgets and “human capital.” Approximately half are projected to come from individual school spending plans, and the rest from other areas.
Significantly concerning Plascencia is reducing payroll — the largest percentage of spending — without putting people out of work. At the moment, there are vacancies in several areas, such as security personnel and paraprofessionals. Some cuts will be generated by not hiring for some positions.
“ What I’m really working hard on is making sure people can move into vacant positions without losing their job,” Plascencia said. “My goal is to work very hard to make sure the people who are going to be impacted have rights to other jobs. All of that impacts morale.”
Some board members, like Carolina Fabian and Christine Lensing, have strong ideas of expenses that should not be reduced. Lensing suggested expanding grants as a revenue source to keep programs like the Wraparound Center well-funded.
“We have to secure our wraparound services because we told the community, ‘ Hey, we have this for you,’ we’ve been cheerleading, and to hear we’re going to cut back on it is very concerning,” Lensing said.
Should paraprofessional positions be left unfilled, Fabian said it would put an additional burden on teachers. Provisions must be made to maintain a high level of learning even without extra adults in classrooms.
“I want to see additional professional development for how our teachers are going to work with the students without the support of paraprofessionals, especially in the (diverse learner) department,” Fabian said. “We do have partners who can fill those roles.”
