Amidst a process of layoffs and cuts, Evanston/Skokie School District 65 held community engagement meetings the week of Jan. 13-17 to discuss cutting expenses further.
At the Jan. 13 Committee of the Whole meeting, district administrators presented to the Board of Education four options to cut at least $15 million in expenses before the end of the school year. .
Across the four plans, the Board has options to lay off between 73 and 81 employees and consolidate bus routes, among other cuts. In all of the scenarios, 22 teachers would be laid off. Varying numbers of administrative staff and non-teaching staff would be laid off across the various plans.
Plans do not call for closing schools in the 2025-26 school year, other than Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, the closure of which was approved by the board in 2024.
According to Superintendent Angel Turner, District 65 originally set a goal of cutting $13.2 million in expenses before the end of the 2024-25 school year. That amount increased to slightly over $15 million to expedite the district’s goal of “getting back to a balanced budget,” she said.
“As I stated before, this isn’t our first time with the structural deficit reduction,” Turner said at a community engagement meeting at Evanston’s South End Community Center on Jan. 17. “We actually began this work back in February 2024.”
Turner said the district laid off 23 employees in July 2024, but later rehired one person after the district’s administration received feedback from community members advocating that they come back.
At the community engagement meeting, the district’s Chief Financial Officer, Tamara Mitchell, said the district is projected to be in the financial warning ranking by an independent auditor, which is one ranking away from being in financial watch. Once a school is in financial watch status, they are under greater risk of being taken over by the state, Mitchell said.
“There are several factors that go into the state board’s determination of coming in and taking over a district,” Mitchell said. “What the state board is looking for is a history of substantial deficits. So they would be looking at, ‘How many years did the district run deficits? And is there a plan in place to stop those deficits?’”
Mitchell also said the state board would look at whether a district is requesting short term borrowing through tax anticipation warrants, which she likened to a payday loan.
“We’re not there yet. We don’t project being there for this fiscal year, and with cuts that we’re looking to put into place for fiscal (year) ’26 we don’t anticipate being there either,” she said.
Previously, the district’s financial consultant warned the school board that if it did not make decision to cut expenses, that a state takeover would be likely. At the community engagement meeting, Turner said if the board doesn’t commit to a deficit reduction plan, that the district’s fund balances would be in the negatives by 2027.
District 65 used federal funds meant for COVID-19 pandemic relief in the last couple years to avoid learning loss, Mitchell said. Funds were used on an academic skill center, counselors and a teacher residency plan. Now that those funds are expiring, the district will need to consider cutting some of those expenses.
“Coupled with that, as we started to get out of the pandemic… there was increases in everything,” Mitchell said. “Everything from food costs to services that the districts are paying for.”
Because the district does not offer special education services, it must pay for students to attend special education classes elsewhere, and it only gets partially reimbursed for that expense, Turner said.
“We need to get more efficient in the services we provide our special ed students. That’s one thing that the district is looking to see,” Turner said, when asked if the district was considering housing its special education unit in its school system.
