By Adam Studzinski

NORMAL – Unit 5 has approved its budget for the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

If all goes according to plan, the district will end with a $1.2 million surplus in its $95 million education fund. However, the district’s transportation fund will likely have an $800,000 deficit.

“Again, it comes back to proration from the state,” said Finance Director Marty Hickman. “If we were receiving 100 percent of our transportation payments, we would not have a deficit in that fund.

“That said we’ve had proration for a few years now. So, we are starting to look – and this is part of our strategic planning process that we’re going to start in October with the community – we need to look at our transportation, and look at how we do things, and as a community determine how we’re going to close that budget gap.”

Hickman added Unit 5 might not even end up getting all its general state aid payments, which could affect the overall budget.

“It’s extremely difficult to structure the budget with all the uncertainties,” said Hickman. “Especially because the uncertainties, many of them, do not become known until almost the end of our budget period.”

Unit 5 is anticipating a 2 percent increase in property tax revenue, which Hickman said does help out a little.

Adam Studzinski can be reached at [email protected].