Windows large cause for district deficit

Andrew Heiserman
Posted 8/14/19

Before their monthly meeting on Tuesday the Rochelle Elementary School District Board members hosted a special workshop to discuss the Fiscal Year 2020 Tentative Budget.

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Windows large cause for district deficit

Posted

ROCHELLE – Before their monthly meeting on Tuesday the Rochelle Elementary School District Board members hosted a special workshop to discuss the Fiscal Year 2020 Tentative Budget. The tentative budget had to be legally posted by the end of the day Tuesday, so board members and superintendent Jason Harper met to discuss the deficit for next year which is estimated at $1,481,576.
Of the overall expected deficit amount, $900,000 is due to needed window replacements at Rochelle Middle School and Tilton Elementary school.
“We are slated to receive $114,000 more than we received last year, so the sum of what we would receive from the state is $5.3 million,” said Harper, who also explained that 80 to 90 percent of the budget is made up of salary, benefits and special education costs.
Following the workshop, the FY20 Tentative Budget was approved at the district’s regular monthly meeting, and a public hearing on Sept. 17 before the final budget is approved.

Data breach
The recently announced Pearson data breach was also discussed during the monthly meeting. Harper said he is going to look into obtaining quotes from companies that provide credit monitoring after incidents of data breaches. If a breach occurs and personal information is leaked, the company that caused the breach is responsible for providing the credit monitoring services to anyone who was affected.
Since it was Pearson who caused the breach, board members are urging anyone who was possibly affected to take advantage of this free credit monitoring service.
Within District #231 adults first name, last name and school email were compromised and for children it was their first name, last name, and birthday.
The need to prepare the staff against a possible “phishing” attack was also brought to the board’s attention. This would involve sending test emails to staff and monitoring how many click on or forward suspicious links as part of the education and protection process.
Other action
The board also approved the hiring of Caitlin Paxton to fill a part-time physical education position and Jacqueline Baylor as a nurse at Lincoln School.
Resignations were accepted from May School kindergarten teacher Jacqueline O’Rorke and May School part-time physical education teacher Kimberly Tinsley.