The district is keeping a wary eye on what happens in Springfield. Governor Pat Quinn in his budget address yesterday proposed to the General Assembly to cut the budget for K-12 education for the upcoming fiscal year by $300 million.

About half of the decrease would be taken out of general state aid. This year, state aid is being paid to local school districts at a prorated amount of 89 percent. The governor’s proposed $150 million cut to GSA would mean school district funding next year is prorated at 82 percent.

District 117 Chief Financial Officer Lori Niemeier says that would be bad news.

“If he enacts the ruling, then that’s an additional $900,000 to add to that deficit,” says Niemeier. “So, we’ll be back into a $1.8 million dollar deficit.”

The foundation level, which is the formula the state uses to distribute General State Aid, is $6,100 per student this fiscal year. The proration would effectively drop that to $5,400.

The Other half of Quinn’s proposed cuts would come from the transportation reimbursement fund. It would mean a 19 percent proration of the reimbursement school districts get to operate school buses.