McHenry County Blog

Twenty days after its mistake in projecting State Aid to Education became apparent, District 300’s board stated the obvious.

It blew the state aid projection big time.

The Elgin Daily Courier-News served up a pretty scathing story under the bland headline:

D300 confirms aid figures

If you are a regular reader of McHenry County Blog, you will remember the Algonquin/Lake in the Hills Rotary Club meeting during which District 158 Board member Larry Snow got an admission out of District 300 finance projector Cheryl Crates that her prediction of the state aid increase was flawed by being too low. The meeting was well over a month before the tax hike and bond referendums.

A week later Northwest Herald reporter Allison Smith ran a history of state aid.

Today Elgin Courier reporter Christine Moyer points out that in this fifth version of District 300’s budget the $170 per student State Aid to Education figure Larry Snow predicted a month before the election is (May I have the envelope, please?) CORRECT.

The newest budget revision says an extra $1.3 million will flow from the state taxpayers.

Oh, my.

That’s more than the $1 million that was going to be saved by eliminating sports and extracurricular activities.

Read this from the Courier-News:

In the past, District 300 officials projected the foundation level for assistance would increase by about $50 per student, meaning the district would receive roughly $2 millino less than is expected in state aid for the 2007-2007 school year.

District officials referred to this as a conservative approach…

However, district critics called these figures unrealistic, insisting they were used to create a more dire financial situation than really existed.

The Northwest Herald’s Allison Smith wrote a story.

Smith noted that most of the criticisms of the budget panned out in District 300’s favor:

For months, there has been debate, much of it contentious, leading up to the March referendums.

But one by one, firm figures replaced best guesses. Some factors played out as critics predicted. Most did not.

I don’t think I entirely agree. Smith points out that the state subsidy for the charter school will not come in this year, as critics suggested. Critics also pointed out that nowhere in the 5-year budget projection was any state aid predicted by District 300.

Here is Smith’s statement on the state aid controversy:

The state will increase the amount it funnels to districts by $170 a child – well more than the $50 the district had estimated at first, and even higher than the $140 figured last month.

Certainly, that state aid will not come this coming year, but I wonder if the 5th budget now includes that charter school subsidy.

She also points out that assessed valuation did not increase as much as critics said it would.

But, District 300's housing boom numbers did not translated into new construction equalized assessed value growth.

District 300 was wrong, however, on the amount of State Aid to Education, ignoring transition fees from Gilberts and some Carpentersville subdivisions, plus charter school subsidies from the state for the entire 5-year budget projection.

Maybe I’m just quibbling, but it seems more like District 300 was more wrong than right.