By Carie Kuehn
BLOOMINGTON – Superintendent of District 87 Barry Reilly reassured the school board that the districts’ schools will open come fall despite the budget stalemate in Springfield.
“I am 100 percent certain we are fine to be able to open, and we are very fortunate to be able to do that,” said Reilly.
Reilly spoke about the financial reserves that have been set up for the district in years of low funding. Although the reserves will allow the district to begin the school year, they were not created to be a permanent financial solution
“We have revenues that are coming in, at the same time we have reserves in the bank, a savings account,” said Reilly. “And the money that is coming will not cover every cost that we have during the year so those reserves are wultimately going to start to dwindle down.”
Many Illinois schools are not able to make it through the upcoming school year without a state budget and education funding. While District 87 is able to open, Reilly said it is imperative that they are not forced to use the entirety of their financial reserves.
“Boards of education have taken time effort to get those reserves to a point where if you need to use them in one specific year, fine, but you don’t want to do that year after year,” said Reilly. “If you need to borrow money to do certain things, to upgrade facilities, to provide technology to kids, you may have to do that in a big purchase and you can’t borrow the money because the banks look at you and say you don’t have money in the bank to pay us, pay your loan back.”
State leaders continue the conversation in Springfield, and Reilly said it’s up to both sides to lay aside differences for the sake of education.
“The leadership doesn’t seem to be happening. That is irresponsible. They all own it. They all own it,” said Reilly. “It’s not Republican it’s not Democrat, it’s they both own it. As a superintendent who is trying to advocate on the behalf of a community, and all of us are doing it all across the state, it’s very disheartening.”
Carie Kuehn can be reached at carie.kuehn@cumulus.com .
