Chester District 139 to undergo deficit reduction
<span>With more than $340,000 lost in state aid from fiscal year 2014, outgoing Chester District 139 Superintendent Chris Diddlebock announced the district will have to formulate a deficit reduction plan.</span>
<span>During a special meeting on Wednesday, the Chester Board of Education approved the amended 2014-15 budget, which showed the district lost $171,578 in general state aid alone.</span>
<span>Another $168,989 was lost in categorical payments from the state. In total, District 139 has lost nearly $700,000 in general state aid during the past four years.</span>
<span>"We just need to take advantage of when we have retirements," said Diddlebock, whose last day as district superintendent was Thursday. "I've written up a plan for the board, but it's not my place, on my last day, to say what we're going to do."</span>
<span>According to the Illinois State Board of Education, a deficit reduction plan is triggered when a school district's operating fund revenues are less than its expenditures by one-third of the ending fund balance by June 30 of a calendar year.</span>
<span>The ISBE only uses amounts in the categories of Educational, Operations and Maintenance, Transportation and Working Cash when determining whether a deficit reduction plan will be required.</span>
<span>"We were under budget in every one of our operating funds this year, which says something when I keep cutting back and we're still under budget," Diddlebock said. "I can't keep cutting back fast enough to keep up."</span>
<span>District 139 will now be required to submit a plan to the ISBE, within the next 30 days, to balance its budget within three years. The district will have to estimate its budget in the four categories for the current fiscal year, as well as next three years.</span>
<span>As part of the plan, the ISBE requires an Educational Impact Assessment, in which the district will have to show how the deficit reduction will impact the "educational mission of the district."</span>
<span>"There's a lot of schools in this boat that are running off of bonding power," Diddlebock said. "We're over a million dollars down in revenue from the state since 2011.</span>
<span>"It's been devastating on school districts. We've hit a point where we can't keep up anymore."</span>
<span>Diddlebock said the next step will be turning over the budget documents to co-interim superintendent Bill Riley, who will be the district's first semester superintendent. The employment of Riley, along with co-interim superintendent Rick Goodman, was approved during the district's meeting on June 18.</span>
<span>The deficit reduction plan becomes another part of a significant to-do list for the BOE, which still has yet to approve head coaches for cross country, boys track, girls basketball and softball at Chester High School.</span>
<span>The BOE also has a July 18 deadline to seat a new board member to replace Larry Asselmeier, as well as find a permanent superintendent for the 2016-17 school year.</span>