Indian Prairie School District 204 could need to cut the equivalent of 50 full-time positions from its ranks if voters shoot down its proposal to sell up to $420 million in bonds, district officials recently said.
That proposal is set to go before voters as a referendum question in the upcoming Nov. 5 general election.
If voters approve the bond sale, those funds would go toward needed facility improvements, including projects improving the safety and security of schools, catching up on deferred maintenance and making operations more efficient, among other things, with projects that would touch all 33 of the district’s schools, district staff members have previously said.
The bonds would be paid for using a continuation of an existing 37-cent property tax per $100 of equalized assessed value that would otherwise expire at the end of 2026, meaning that voters’ approval of the bonds would effectively keep the tax rate flat, according to past reporting.
However, if voters are against Indian Prairie School District’s bond proposal, the district will still need to spend $13 million more each year than it is currently spending to pay for “bare minimum” facility upgrades, according to District 204 Chief School Business Official Matt Shipley.
He told the district’s Board of Education at a recent meeting that the district would have to pay for those bare-minimum improvements using the district’s already-lean operating budget or some other source of revenue.
Shipley has previously said that the district has significantly less funding per student than other comparable and nearby districts, and it also has less than what the state considers to be adequate per-student funding.
Some of that $13 million per year price tag could be paid in part by using around $40 million of reserve funds and asking for state grants that could pay for an estimated $30 million of the required upgrades, but the district would still have to divert about $5 million of its operating budget each year to fund these needed improvements, Shipley said.
That estimated $5 million per year would come from cutting the equivalent of 50 full-time positions next year, he said.
While Indian Prairie School District would look to make some of those cuts at its central office, the district already has fewer administrators than it should, and its central office does not have that many employees to cut, District 204 Superintendent Adrian Talley told the board.
“So, it will be an impact to schools. It will be an impact to class sizes. It will be an impact to programs,” he said. “I don’t say this lightly. I say it because it’s the truth.”
One place the district may look to cut positions is within kindergarten, first-grade and second-grade classes, which recently had their class sizes reduced at a cost of roughly $1.5 million per year, according to Talley.
He said it was his belief and hope that the district would be able to keep the positions needed to keep those class sizes down.
“I do believe the success we’ve been able to have over the last couple of years has to do in part because of that reduced class sizes,” Talley said. “Am I saying tonight, were we not to get the bond referendum, that we would go immediately to the K, One, Two? I’m not saying that, but it is probably very likely.”
However, those cuts would only be equal to about 15 full-time equivalent positions, meaning there would still be broader impacts to reach the needed reduction of 50 full-time equivalent positions, he said.
If voters approve the $420 million bond issue, the district would look to sell its first round of bonds before the end of the year, according to Shipley. He said that first round would likely give the district about $14.5 million, which would go to fund the first round of improvements.
Funding safety and security improvements would be the district’s highest priority when using bond funds, he said.
During a previous presentation to the Board of Education, Shipley said the district is planning to do $40 million worth of construction projects in summer 2025 if the bonds are approved, with $10 million going toward safety and security upgrades like building secure school entrances and upgrading external doors.
The next round of bond sales would likely be for $156.5 million and take place in July 2025, according to Shipley’s recent presentation. Another sale is planned for July 2027 at an amount of $169 million, and the last sale is planned for October 2029 at $80 million, he said.
Other than safety and security upgrades, which would be completed by the end of summer 2026, the bonds would also go toward a variety of other school-related construction and maintenance projects, with some schools receiving total overhauls and others receiving relatively more minor work, according to past reporting.
Waubonsie Valley High School and Gregory and Hill middle schools are expected to get “comprehensive improvements,” which means total renovations and a slew of other work, a voter information sheet posted to the district’s website stated.
In a video about different schools’ needs, which was also posted to the district’s website, Shipley gave examples of issues within these schools that would be addressed with funds from the bond sale.
Some of those examples include narrow stairways that barely fit two students side-by-side and a leaking roof that warps the floor of the upper gym, both of which are at Hill Middle School. Shipley said in the video that the building is the oldest middle school in the district and still has its original 40-year-old roof.
None of the funds that come from the sale of bonds can go toward day-to-day operational costs, like salaries or programs, district officials have previously said.
However, since many of the projects that would be funded by the bonds would increase efficiency and lower recurring costs, funds would be freed up that could go toward hiring additional teachers and reducing class sizes, Shipley previously said.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com