On Jan. 4, District 65 launched its Thought Exchange, saying,
“District 65 is planning for its future and is committed to investing in the
priorities that are most impactful for our students and our Evanston/Skokie
schools. From January 4-13, all are invited to join the virtual conversation as
part of its first Thought Exchange. The insights and perspectives gathered will
inform equitable decision making as part of the district’s budget planning
process.” To view the entire announcement, click here.
At the District 65 Finance Committee meeting held on Dec. 9,
the Thought Exchange was heralded as an online tool intended to gather
community input that will help the District address its projected deficits.
The Projected Deficits
The District’s latest financial projections forecast that it
will operate at a surplus of $67,243 in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2022
(FY’22), and then operate at deficits of $3.4 million in FY’23; $6.6 million in
FY’24; $9.6 million in FY’ 25; and $12.4 million in FY’26. The accompanying
chart illustrates the growth in projected deficits.
At the Dec. 9 meeting, members of the District 65 School
Board appeared to concur that it would be necessary to cut about $10 million in
expenses to balance revenues and expenses by FY’25, but several said they still
wanted some additional information.
There was no discussion at that meeting about how much
should be cut for the next school year, 2021-22 (FY’22), or in each subsequent
year. While funds from the 2017 Referendum have been set aside to address
future deficits, the plan is to preserve the Referendum Funds and to truly
balance the District’s operating revenues and its operating expenses. For an
article about that meeting, click here.
The Thought Exchange
For the Thought Exchange, the District poses one open-ended
question: “As we review our short and long-term financial outlook for
Evanston/Skokie District 65, what are some important things for us to consider
and prioritize.”
The District says participants using Thought Exchange:
- ---
may
share thoughts or ideas in response to the open-ended question,
-
-- are
encouraged to review and rate the thoughts of others, by clicking on one to
five stars,
-
-- can
track the results of the exchange in real time, including which thoughts are
rated highest and what themes are emerging.
Participants do not have to provide their names but are asked
to provide other information, such as their race/ethnicity, whether they have
children attending District 65, whether they are an employee of the District,
and other information.
The Magnitude of the Deficits
The Thought Exchange is intended to gather information to
help the District assess its “short and long-term financial outlook.” The Introduction,
though, does not provide information about the magnitude of the District’s projected
deficits.
Nor does it state that the District is projecting operating
deficits that grow to $12.4 million by FY’26 or that the School Board plans to
cut about $10 million by FY’25.
The Introduction does provide a link to a page titled “District
65 Financial Outlook.” That one-page summary says, “Like many other districts,
the COVID-19 pandemic has weighed heavily on the District’s already strained
budget. While the projected deficits have been on the horizon for several
years, they have only intensified. As we look toward the coming school year,
the District will need to reduce its budget by upwards of $1 million. This is
an extremely difficult but necessary step forward in addressing the structural
deficit that has plagued the District for years.”
Like the Introduction, the Financial Outlook page does not
mention that the District is projecting escalating deficits or indicate that
the District is seeking input on addressing deficits that that grow to $12.4
million by FY’26.
The Financial Outlook page does contain a link to “D65
Financial Resources,” which in turn contains links to five other documents.
The first link is to “Financial Outlook: 10 Quick Facts,” a
one-page document that mentions, among other things, potential revenue losses and
added expenses due to COVID-19. It says, “To address COVID-19 related expenses
and a resulting deficit for the FY’23 budget, the district must consider
reductions that could total between $1-1.5 million for the upcoming school
year.”
It does not mention the projected deficits for FY’24, FY’25,
or FY’26.
The projected deficits for FY’23-26 are contained in other multi-page
documents that are linked to the District 65 Financial Resources document,
namely a Presentation at the November 19, 2020 Special Finance Committee
Meeting; the 2020-2021 Budget At-A-Glance; and the 2020-2021 Final Budget.
But how many people participating in the Thought Exchange
will click through to read those documents is unclear. And absent a clear
statement in the Introduction to the Thought Exchange, it is unclear how many participants
will understand that their input is being sought on how to address budget
deficits totaling about $10 million by FY’15 or $12.4 million by FY’26.
The RoundTable asked Superintendent Devon Horton, Board
President Anya Tanyavutti and Finance Committee Chair Joey Hailpern why participants
were not advised of the projected deficits in the Introduction and other
summary documents and whether participants’ comments will be meaningful without
being told about the magnitude of the projected deficits and that the goal is
to reduce expenses by $10 million by FY’25?
Mr. Hailpern told the RoundTable, “The current Thought
Exchange platform prompt is intended to include onramps for all community
members to engage. To your question about including specific financial
information there are two reasons for not including more information.
“The first is doing so might narrow the intention of someone
who joins the exchange to reply to the prompt that does not have
background knowledge on the issue. For those people specifically, the prompt as
presented does not prohibit a response or contribution. For those with
knowledge of our current discussions, etc, the prompts also allow them to bring
that information to their contributions.
“Another reason is that we did not want to originate the
conversation from a deficit standpoint.”
Melissa Messenger, Director of Communications, told the RoundTable,
“Our goal in launching the Thought
Exchange was to begin a more in-depth conversation with the community and
gather diverse perspectives related to priorities and considerations as we plan
for the future. While the discussion is rooted in financial decision making, we believe it
is important to set the tone for productive dialogue on community values and
priorities, not on potential recommendations for reductions at this time.
“This will be an ongoing conversation over the next several
months, with engagement opportunities, that will dive deeper into the financial
outlook and deficits that we face.”
The Thought Exchange may be accessed by clicking here: Click to
Participate Now