^[1]By Jim Hagerty
Staff Writer

Findings of the District 205 budget review were announced Monday, Feb. 28 at a meeting of the Budget Review Consultant Selection Committee.

According to consulting firm Baker Tilly and City of Rockford Finance Director Andres Sammul, District 205, led by Chief Financial Officer Cedric Lewis, did its job in determining next year’s budget hole.

Lewis projects a deficit of $50 million for fiscal 2012.

Baker Tilly’s review concentrated on three areas of the budget, which the Rockford Education Association agreed upon last week. The areas examined were general state aid revenue, corporate replacement revenue and expenses relating to benefits.

Those three areas, and the 2011 budget deficit of $41 million, represent the 2012 hole of $50 million, Lewis said.

Championing Baker Tilly’s stand that the district’s budget projections are in the ballpark, former Rockford Mayor Charles Box said determining a budget is not an exact science.

“The roles of the consultants and our role was not to say the deficit is ‘X’,” Box said. “It was to look at these three items–two revenues and one expenditure– to see if they were reasonable.

“When the budget is prepared, you do it three or six months before the fiscal year. And it changes throughout the year. I can’t tell you what the deficit is going to be.

“The focus here was to get the community, hopefully, on a closer track so you are dealing with apples and apples when the board and the superintendent start making tough decisions about what to close and consolidate. We’re in the ballpark.”

Being in the ballpark, according to the Rockford Education Association (REA), isn’t good enough.

According to Illinois Education Association UniServe Director Mark Michaels, the union may ask the school board to approve a larger study.

That, school board member Jude Makulec (Sub District-D) said, the board will likely vote-down.

Makulec also said, given the numbers and breakdown by Cedric Lewis, the board will vote on Superintendent Dr. LaVonne Sheffield’s $45 million budget-cutting plan tomorrow (March 1).

Baker Tilly was commissioned to audit the district budget earlier this month when the union challenged the validity of the $50 million shortfall.

The union claimed the budget was actually in the neighborhood of $15 million, and could prevent some of Sheffield’s proposed cuts and schools from closing.

School closings, however, may have little to do with budget problems.

“Let’s be honest about this,” Makulec said. “Thinking we won’t close any schools because somebody found some money has been an incorrect assumption. The school building closings are happening because we have too many empty seats in our schools.

“What this report (is) to do (is) help us (determine) the second level of cuts–which are the elimination of programs.”

Secondary cuts include possible elimination of gifted classes and deeper building and staff reductions, especially if the teachers union does not agree to labor concessions.

Before adjourning, former Rockford Mayor John McNamara told the committee tensions between the union and district officials are not the result of malpractice or malfeasance. The root issue, the former mayor said, is a lack of communication and distrust by both entities.

That, McNamara said, has clouded the much larger vision of how to repair a badly in-need school district–one with problems deeper than cash problems.

“We are at a point where we need to to talk about structural problems,” McNamara said.

Former Rockford Mayor Doug Scott was also on the Budget Review Consultant Selection Committee.

The Rockford Board of Education is scheduled to meet at Ellis Arts Academy, 222 S. Central Ave., at 6 p.m. tomorrow.

The meeting has been moved from the Administration Building to accommodate what is expected to be a large crowd.