D-65 Cuts Jobs, Halts Admin Raises To Cover $1.9 Million Deficit

EVANSTON, IL — Facing financial projections of a structural deficit growing from nearly $2 million to almost $15 million over the next four years, the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board voted unanimously Monday to approve a series of budget cuts for the coming school year.

The cuts include five cafeteria positions, three of which are currently vacant, four reading specialist positions as part of a reorganization and three full-time library media assistants.

The largest single piece of the $1,937,022 in projected savings from the list of cuts and efficiencies is $415,000 that will be saved by moving the start times of its middle schools from 8:30 a.m. to 8 a.m.

District 65 will accrue an additional $4.6 million in coronavirus pandemic-related costs and has only received $800,000 in federal assistance to cover the cost, according to a financial update last month from Superintendent Devon Horton. The district's annual budget is about $140 million.

Horton revealed Monday ahead of the vote that he and other administrators would not be receiving pay raises this year.

"I had to make a decision," Horton said. "I've had a conversation with the team, and we met with leadership today in the district. We've been talking about this for about two months. There'll be no administrative raises this year in the district."

The salary freeze would provide an additional $160,000 in projected savings, the superintendent said.

"That was a hard decision to make, but we also understand the importance of us all contributing to the challenges of our budget, and so we will all, collectively as admin, not apply for a raise," Horton said.

The superintendent also announced that at least one, and very likely two, administrative positions would be cut.

"Also there will be a reduction in a few administrative positions, but again I am not at liberty to speak to those until everything is really ironed out completely," he told the board.

According to District 65's 2020-21 compensation report, it employs 53 administrators, including six assistant or deputy superintendents.

Horton said he expected to have additional details about the administrative changes at next months' board meeting.

Board President Anya Tanyavutti said she appreciated the commitment from administrators to forgoe raises and was looking forward to hearing back about how things have been reorganized after the administrative changes.

"We understand that administrative positions absolutely have an impact on what schools feel like and what happens in classrooms, if administration's organized properly," Tanyavutti said.

Board member Joey Halperin said cutting down on administrative overhead was cited as a goal by many respondents to a recent community survey.

"We do need to lean out a little bit," Halperin said, "just as we're asking everybody else to do."

A memo to the superintendent from Business Manager Kathy Zalewski ahead of a finance committee meeting earlier this month attributed the budget shortfall to lost revenue and increased spending associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. She projected the deficit would be even larger in future years.

"Per the Board’s directive," Zalewski said, "[Administrators are] working on bringing the rate of growth in expenditures down to reduce the structural deficit."

Unknown factors that could still affect the budget for the next fiscal year include the threat to revenues from property taxes or long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shifts in pension costs could also lead to increased spending, she said.

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Ahead of a 2017 referendum, which added an extra $14.5 million in property taxes annually to the district's budget, former Superintendent Paul Goren and former Board President Candace Chow projected the district's deficit would have exceeded $10 million by the 2020-21 school year had voters not approved the referendum.

One of the board's guidelines for spending the referendum funds was to use it to ensure there was a full-time reading specialist in each elementary school. With the restructuring of those positions, that will not be the case.

Reassigning 18 of the district's 22 reading specialists to be teachers or reading interventionists will create "new opportunities," administrators told the Evanston RoundTable. Employees whose positions are being restructured were involved in shaping the new description, administrators said, and encouraged to apply.

In a message to the community last month, Horton said district officials would continue to cut expenses and be creative to identify new sources of revenue in the coming years.

"Despite a successful 2017 operating referendum, which has allowed the District to avoid severe budget cuts, the structural deficit has not been resolved," he said. "The District remains extremely grateful for community support of the referendum and yet it was never meant to be a long-term solution. "