Kane County Reporter

On Sept. 26, the Geneva Community Unit School District 304 Board of Education met to discuss its budget for the new fiscal year, donations and upcoming expenses.

The board heard that the district is looking at a deficit of almost $3.3 million this year. However, the district has built up a reserve to offset the deficit. The reserve comes as a result of the pandemic, during which buildings were closed, utilities were not being heavily used, and some expenditures that had been budgeted did were unneeded.

“So those fund balances that we had accrued, we'll be spending those down,” Todd Latham, assistant superintendent for business for the district, said during the meeting. “As I mentioned, there were many things in (Operations and Management) as well as some capital improvements that we could not make because people couldn't come in the building. The school was closed for a period of time or materials or supplies weren't available and we had to defer some of that as well.”

Latham went through an overview of the revised budget that the board was voting on, pointing out each individual local revenue that the district collected, the state funding which was mostly reimbursements by grants, and federal funding, which had decreased due to the ending of ESSER funding. These all amounted to about $110.5 million in funds for the fiscal year.

He also went through the district’s expenditures for the year, including all salaries, costing just under $40 million, and instructional funds. He then looked at its operational and maintenance funds, which included around $8.6 million in capital improvements through the district. The district had to add a couple new items to the budget this year, estimating new revenues from parking fees and food revenue, as well as the addition of an expenditure if an employee attends jury duty.

The board voted to approve a donation from Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers of $1,500 for the Geneva High School Athletics program to buy needed supplies.

The board will meet again at 7 p.m. on Oct. 25 at the Coultrap Educational Service Center at 227 North Fourth St. in Geneva.