With a targeted June 16 deadline in mind, officials in Naperville School District 203 continue reviewing and refining the different pieces of the puzzle that make up the fiscal year 2026 school district budget. It will serve as the guiding document for revenues and expenditures for the upcoming 2025-26 school year.
Administrators gave a presentation on the preliminary budget proposal in early May as a primer for workshops and an official public hearing in mid-June. Budget deliberations continued at the board’s meeting on Monday, May 19, in the first of three workshops.
The big picture plan for the year ahead includes a 3.29% increase in revenues and a 6.52% increase in expenses.
Committee weighing in on budget plans
As is the practice each year, Naperville 203 officials engage in meetings with an ad-hoc citizen finance committee after the initial budget proposal is presented.
Since the budget’s unveiling, Superintendent Dan Bridges and Board President Charles Cush indicated a meeting with the group has taken place. Bridges noted “excellent turnout” at the meeting.
“Some of the expertise around the table was development, real estate law, a lawyer who has also been on public pension and other boards before and a woman in the healthcare industry,” Bridges said. “They’re all bringing their niche into the group.”
Cush said he was thankful for the insight the committee provided and described the panelists as “leaders in the community.”
“They seemed pretty much in alignment with the way we were looking at things,” Cush said. “There’s more to come — as we learn more information, we will continue to share with that group. It’s a wonderful process, in getting that level of feedback.”
District 203 board asking questions as budget reviews continue
Naperville 203 administrators are compiling a list of questions board members send in and are placing them into a document, with corresponding responses.
To the board, Bridges said, “As you continue to dig deeper and deeper and have more questions, please send those in, and in the spirit of transparency, we will make sure that those are loaded.”
As of the May 19 meeting, more than a dozen questions and responses were logged in the document; Bridges acknowledged additional ones had come in and are being reviewed as well.
To date, board questions have touched on such specific budgetary issues as K-12 literacy curriculum costs, employee benefits costs, and reserve cash in the district’s fund balance.
In response to a question about the potential impact on federal funding, Naperville 203 officials in the document wrote, “Federal funding can be for specific grants or reimbursements for specific programs for dollars already spent. A los of grant funding would reduce expenses accordingly, while a loss of reimbursement is simply a loss of revenue.”
Additional discussions on the budget proposal will take place at upcoming board meetings on June 2 and June 16. At the June 16 meeting, the board will also hold a public hearing and could act on the budget.
State law requires school districts adopt budgets each year by Sept. 30, but Naperville 203 has a goal of having its budget in place before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.
Mike Frances, Naperville 203’s chief financial officer, said the timing of the district’s adopted budget is “typically before any other school district in the state of Illinois.”
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