001Yeah. Good evening everyone. It's 7 p.m. on August the 25th, 2025. I would like to call to order the meeting of the finance committee for Lao Community School unit district unit school district 202. Uh first off is public comment. Have we received any blue cards or any any email quailed questions? We have not. >> Excellent. The third item on the agenda are the meeting minutes for June 23rd, 2025. Does anyone have any questions or changes about the minutes? >> So, we're all we have a consensus that they reflect the meeting accurately? >> Yes. >> Excellent. Wonderfully. We have a blissfully short meeting. Uh let's see here. Item four is the review of student activity accounts in excess of $5,000. The information for this item can be found in the finance committee packet under item number
002four. Mr. Wilkinson, if you would take it away. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Niggler. So, uh, each year at the close of the fiscal year, we review our student activity fund accounts, uh, that have balances over $5,000. Uh, the purpose of this is to make sure that, uh, the funds are used for the benefit of the students who actually contributed them. So those that made the contributions during the year, we want to make sure that those um activity funds are are being utilized for those students at the same time. And so this process allows us uh as the committee to confirm uh kind of what the larger balances are, make sure they're being monitored, and then uh tied to some kind of active program or um some kind of um activity that will spend down
003those balances um in the near term. And so typically those uh larger amounts end up being at the high school. This year we had three accounts at the high school. The first one is the athletic tournament account which actually ended the year at a a very um large dollar amount of $41,000. I think last year it was about $6,000. And so I did inquire as to to that difference and um in talking with Mary Beth, our accounting coordinator, they actually got receipts in June for some of those uh camp fees. Uh they're running a lot of camps at the high school these days. Tom Markham has really done a great job of building up those programs. And so often those receipts come in July, but this year they came in June. So that's why the
004balance is larger at the end of the year than we usually see. But obviously those dollars are used to cover officials salaries, um other summer camp expenses that occur primarily during the month of July. Uh girls basketball also typically has a balance at the end of the year. This year was about $12,000 and um they run a summer league over there at the high school. And so these funds are used for those league officials, uh staff related costs and other um items associated with those camps. The dance team is raising money for uh their national competition and so they're saving some of those funds so that they can do that uh in the near future. And then as is I kind of mentioned at the beginning, the Lyall Elementary School and the Liar Junior High
005did not have any accounts with balances over $5,000 at the end of the year. And so this is just aformational only. It's just for review. There's no action that the committee needs to take or any action that the board needs to take at the regular meeting. I didn't receive any questions over the weekend. Are there any other questions now? All right. Excellent. Thank you very much. Uh moving on to um item five that is the unodudited financial results for fiscal year 2025 which can be found under item five of the finance committee pack. Mr. Wilkinson if your takeaway once again. >> Yeah. And so uh this is a review of the unodudited financial results for the fiscal year 2025 which ended on June 30th. Um again these are unaudited. Uh we do um account for
006our salary and benefit acrals in the audited numbers. But then our final uh accounts payable acrals and things like that happened as a result of the audit process as well as some of our um state and federal grants and kind of um deferring those revenues and recognizing some of those revenues in the year. So those will all be factored in when we get the financial uh the final results, the audited results and I believe it is November. So this is kind of a preliminary look at at where we finished the year. Um when we adopted the budget back in September, we were anticipating expenditures would exceed revenues by about $4.8 million. Um and this was primarily because of spending down some of those fund balances for the Lyall Junior High renovations project. Um in actuality,
007our expenditures exceeded revenues by about 1.8 million. So it was quite a bit less than we originally anticipated. But the variance is is primarily the result of two things. um when we did the audit for last year, so the FY24 audit, part of those approvals for July and August where they actually took all of the work we had performed in June and actually acrewed it back into that prior fiscal year. And so that was an audit adjustment that was made through that process. And I had already finalized the budget. We had already approved the budget in September. And I believe we touched on that when we went through the budget process. And so a lot of those expenditures actually got recognized earlier in the prior fiscal year, but we'd already approved the budget. So that's
008why we're seeing this large different for fiscal year 25. The other piece of good news is uh when we finally closed out the project um at the end of this fiscal year, we just finished up fiscal year 25. It actually closed at 5.7 million for phase one of the work where the original contracts that were approved with the construction manager were 6.3 million. So, we ended up coming in not having to use all of our allowances and contingencies and things like that that are built into the project. And so, it ended up being about $600,000 less than was accounted for in the original contract. Um, kind of more importantly, again, we always talk about all funds versus operating funds. Operating funds are the ones that that we pay a little bit closer attention to because
009they give us an idea if we have a a balanced operating budget each year. And when we look at that for the year we just finished up, uh again it's the education fund, the on andm fund, the transportation fund, and our working cash fund, it actually produced an operating surplus of about 1.7 million. And so if you take a step back to when we originally approved the budget, I think we were anticipating about a I'm going off of memory here, but I think it was around an $800,000 surplus. when we actually finished the year, um, we ended up at 1.7 million, which was approximately where I was projecting us to land when I worked on the projection that we saw, uh, back in April. So, the good news is kind of where we were anticipating
010being 3/4 of the way through the year is where we ended up actually finishing this fiscal year. Looking at some of our revenues, um, overall revenues were just under budget by 132,000. So, we were at 99.7% of what we planned. Um, so that was uh very accurate. Property taxes, obviously, we know what the levy is. So, most years and this year as well, we were right on target with our property tax uh budget and what actually happened. Corporate personal property replacement taxes is one of those numbers that tends to go up and down a lot. We've seen a lot of variation in that one over the last few years. And so each year when we budget, we use what the Illinois Department of Revenue provides as the estimates. And in this case, those estimates were
011pretty much spot-on. We were only off by about $8,000. So, uh, that was good to see that those numbers, which are often very difficult to find out where they come from and where they're going to land, those ended up being quite accurate this year. Investment income was a bright spot. We finished $290,000 over what we had budgeted. So that's good news. Um I had budgeted pretty conservatively in that area primarily because um the Fed was starting to cut interest rates and so there was kind of the thought that those interest rates were going to go down throughout the course of the year. That ended up not happening as fast as kind of anticipated. So we ended up seeing more investment income uh than we originally budgeted for. On the other hand, as far as our
012state and federal grants are concerned, um, state revenues were about $250,000 lower, and then federal revenues were also about $125,000 lower. So, a couple explanations for those. Uh, the first one, as far as our state revenues go, um, special education transportation reimbursement, when we finalize the budget, we have to go based on kind of estimates. Those numbers aren't known at that time. And so the preliminary computation that we had from the state um indicated we get about $810,000 for specialed transportation reimbursement um last September. At that time the pration was expected to be 82%. When the state actually finalized those numbers and finalized what that pration was, it ended up being reduced to 69%. And so, um, that ended up reducing what we got in reimbursements from the state by $130,000. And so, I think
013it's just kind of another, um, barometer of where those costs are going up for the school districts. Those special education transportation go costs are going up, not only for us, but for all school districts in Illinois. And so, the state pretty much just has the same amount of money. And so as those costs go up, the school districts are all getting less and less because they're all competing for the same dollars that the state has. Yes, Mr. >> So it's the percentage went down because the cost went up, but we still had like a fixed amount, relatively fixed amount going in, right? >> When you say a fixed amount, >> when they estimate it to say we give you the what was the first number? 70. >> So we were expecting to get 810,000 from
014the state. And so that would be based on what our costs were >> getting 82% reimbursement of those costs >> and that was what we were expecting to get. When they did the final calculation they only gave us 69% of that. >> How do you go from 82 69 just what's their math? What what drives that? >> That's very complicated. >> Okay. >> So um >> and I was going to get I think because the costs rise so much to your point there's a limited budget. So how they distributed that >> do they go say your district is better funded so you that amount will go down more or how >> they basically just have a fixed amount. >> Yep. >> This is how much we're going to reimburse. If everyone's costs went up everyone's
015going to get a little bit less. >> Okay. So everybody's percent went on the >> Yeah. It isn't as though you spend a hundred and we're going to pay 80 cents on or $80 on the 100. They're basically saying we've got $80. uh if you spend 100, you get the $80. If you spend $ 200, you get the $80. It really doesn't matter how much you spend. There's some proration as to how much each school district spends, but there's a fixed amount that the state puts towards the reimbursement, and it almost has less to do with how much you spend. >> Yeah. And so percentage back. >> Correct. Yeah. And then >> in the long run, you >> Exactly. Effectively, the state has a limit. They have a pool of money and that pool doesn't
016change. Now, do they reevaluate that pool of money every year? Like if they know the costs are going up, will they have be a bigger pool next year? >> I think there's just very broad allocations at the state level and so every single year, even though they're supposed to pay something in the area of 85%, it's nowhere near that number because whatever that number is allocated to all the school districts comes nowhere near that proration. >> Well, they have budgeting process and right so they make that budget, they make the decisions, that's the number, right? and then the actual costs come out. You know, it's a time, it sounds like a timing issue between the legislature making a decision and >> I think it's a shortage of funds on the state's level. >> Money issue.
017>> Yeah. And so I don't know all the specifics, but um the advocacy groups have been asking for more money to be added to the um transportation aotment in the budget, but most of the new dollars are going towards the evidence-based funding formula. Okay. which is distributed based on adequacy and things like that to other school districts. So, there hasn't been a lot of there may have been some new money added to the transportation dollars, but it hasn't been what is necessary to keep up with the rising costs. >> And so, this year's budget, what was the percentage that we estimated for that? Still the 82 or did you decrease that? >> So, we are going to be finalizing that in September. So we had a preliminary amount in there uh in June and so
018we'll obviously be looking at what the history has been of the prorations. We're not going to be going over 69% now. We'll probably potentially drop it to maybe 65. >> Perfect. Okay. Preferably I like you being very conservative that because I keep looking at every year you present we're within like one or to 3% of budget which is always great. It's incredible. I appreciate all the thought and time you guys put into >> and I appreciate that and and that is one thing I was going to say because the other side of things on the federal side it was kind of the national school lunch program. We had a new account with Chartwells. I didn't know what the participation would be, what the sales would be and so I had to kind of estimate under
019the new contract when the numbers finally uh when we finished out the year it ended up being about $35,000 less than what we had anticipated. And so whenever we get to September, we do our best with the federal and state grants. We try and look at kind of what the trends have been, what the last three years have looked like, what we're looking at in terms of um potential sales and things like that for lunches, students that we have, but it it's you don't have final numbers, so you have to do the best that you can. Um and so in this case there were some uh variances here that I just wanted to make sure I explained to the to the committee. Um on the expenditure side uh we finished uh just looking at our
020operating funds. Again not talking about the difference in the capital projects fund that was mentioned earlier but we finished about 1.2 million under budget in our operating funds. Um salaries and benefits obviously that's the majority of our costs. Uh those were very close to the plan. and I think it was um about $300,000 below budget, which is not that much in the grand scheme of things based on how much we spend on salaries and benefits. Uh purchase services is one area I wanted to highlight. You may have seen it in the write up, but um we ended up finishing the year under budget, which is great. We were about $150,000 under budget, but when you look at kind of year-over-year, what did it look like this year versus the prior year? we were actually up
021$900,000 or about 15%. So that's that continued pressure we're seeing on on the services that were transportation, repairs and maintenance services and just the costs of labor, the costs of contractual services continue to go up. And we also have obviously on the transportation side increased specialed routes, more homeless routes and things like that. So that's where we're seeing a lot of those um cost increases that you know often are very difficult to control because they're required by law. Um and so that I mentioned that the higher transportation costs in terms of special ed uh utilities are going up as well. So we're seeing a rising cost there, professional services. So, um, we managed to keep this under budget, but it is something that that there's that upward pressure, that trend that we're, um, continuing to
022watch and and, uh, the three of us here will be digging into, uh, in the coming months to bring more information back to the the finance committee about why that's happening and what are some of the specifics in that regard. Um, another area worth noting is our tuition costs. Uh for fiscal year 25, uh we had a pretty conservative budget for our tuition and we ended up about uh 18% under that budget, which is great. But again, when you look at comparing it to kind of the prior year, those costs did go up about $500,000. Um and so again, you can have uh more placements some years, less placements some years. Um but we have seen increase in our costs uh in that arena as well. I also anticipate that, you know, a lot of
023those um we get a lot of bills in June and July for those costs and so probably when we go through the audit process and do some of those cruels, I will expect to see some of those June tuition bills uh factored into the final results. So, we will see a little bit of an increase in the cost there as well. Um I did get a couple questions I just wanted to address. Uh, what would the difference between expenditures and revenues have been if we excluded the junior high renovation costs? Uh, I kind of touched that on earlier in the in the presentation. If you looked at all of our funds, but just took the capital projects fund out of there because that's where all of our junior high renovation costs are, we would have
024been uh revenues would have exceeded expenditures by about 1.8 million. or if you just look at the operating funds, which is maybe the more traditional way of doing that, it was the 1.7 million that I mentioned um earlier when we started the presentation tonight. Another question is, is it correct to conclude that the 292,000 in higher investment income basically offset almost all of the unexpected shortfalls elsewhere? I think if we're looking at just the revenues, in a way, you could say yes. um that additional uh investment income of about 290,000 helped to offset some of that lost revenues in terms of our specialed transportation reimbursement um and some of those state and federal grants. I I think that was the the gist of the question. Hopefully I answered that correctly. Um and then in the
025June budget presentation, the beginning fund balance was shown as 20.6 6 million but here in the preliminary result it's closer to 20.9 million. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Um as of right now the beginning fund balance is around 20.9 million uh kind of based on this preliminary audit information but again that number will change some as we finalize the audit and make any final adjustments for fiscal year 25. So, kind of overall, you know, what's the story for fiscal year 25? Um, we had a positive operating result, which is good. Uh, we controlled the spending and and came in below budget. Um, and we also, you know, completed our, uh, renovations at the junior high without having to use all those allowances and contingencies. So, ultimately, that came in under budget as well.
026But as we've kind of talked about in over the last few months, there are still some things that we kind of need to keep an eye on in terms of our some upward cost pressures in particularly our purchase services amounts and then also um some of our tuition's costs for uh special education students. So that kind of um concludes uh what I had to say in regards to the unuded results. I didn't know if there were any additional questions uh based on what I shared this evening. I just want to take the time to acknowledge the great work that Dave does with this. If you look at the revenue, 0% difference budget versus actual. I know there was some netting in terms of being up and down on others, but it was basically 0%. And
027then when you take out the capital expenditures and you look at budget versus expenditures, it was within 5%. So, there's a lot of details that go into calculating each of those numbers, but Dave puts in the time and effort to make sure that um what you see and what you approve pretty much is what we would hope to have unless there's things that we completely didn't anticipate or out of our control. So, just wanted to say great job with that. Thank you. I do also want to add um we're meeting about every two weeks now to try and dig in in terms of being able to figure out, you know, what types of things need to happen in order to make sure we have a balanced budget. We have one this year that we're living
028now, but we want to make sure we continue to have. And so with these updated numbers, Dave and the team will be digging in to make sure that um when we tell you the types of cuts that need to happen, our biggest fear is that we say, "Well, we need to cut out a million dollars." Only to find out, oh, we had another, you know, 2 million in the black. So, we want to make sure whatever we tell you, we think those numbers are going to be are realistic and they're not worst case scenario so that if we do need to make recommendations for reductions, you can count on there hopefully won't be any surprises later. And so having these final numbers is going to be a great opportunity for Dave to look at this
029year's budget again and then update our projections with that. But um our goal is in the next 6 months to really dig in and get you some information so that if decisions need to be made, we can have those conversations with you perhaps with a larger community group in case we need to decide this versus that. So a lot of moving parts, a little bit different than what we've seen in the past. Traditionally, you're about 2 million in the black, but we do think some of the moving parts moving forward are really going to decrease that uh and things that we may or may not have a control over in terms of transportation, special ed, we've seen a vast number of increase in number of homeless. And so, just making sure that we acknowledge what
030we're doing is the most efficient thing we can do before we start to make any other cuts. I think just to add to that, I I forgot to mention um while there are definitely some areas we need to monitor and and and kind of dig into and have some conversations about, I think overall the district still is in a strong financial position and so I don't want that to um not not be uh a part of the conversation. We still have healthy fund balances. Uh we were still had a positive operating result this year. So um we're still strong. We're just looking forward and making sure that um if some of these factors continue that we have a plan to address those. >> All right. Thank you very much. Does anyone have any further questions
031or comments? No. All right. Good. Thank you very much, Mr. Wilkinson. Now, we move on to uh agenda topics for future finance committee meeting. Does anyone wish to uh add anything? No. All right. Okay. With no other agenda items, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. So, >> so that was Miss Almond and Miss Foster. Yes. >> Yes. >> The microphone works. >> All right. So, the uh finance committee is adjourned at 7:23. Thank you very much everyone. Good day.