Quincy School Board unanimously adopts budget

7 months, 3 weeks ago By Jamie Busen

The final numbers show an overall budget of $69.4 million

The Quincy School Board unanimously voted to adopt the 2012-2013 budget for the school District at a special meeting Wednesday morning.

Click here to see a copy of the budget.

The final numbers show an overall budget of $69.4 million. That figure doesn't include the self-insurance fund. With that added in, the number rises to $77.2 million.

Business Manager Joel Murphy gave a brief overview of the budget during the 20-minute meeting.

School Board President Bill Daniels said he was as satisfied with the budget as he could be, given the State of Illinois cut more funding recently. Illinois is reducing the amount of PPRT from the numbers given to the District in May. The $534,011 decrease had an effect on the education fund, operations/maintenance fund and the IMRF/Social Security fund.

"We had to make even further cuts in the level of services we provide," Daniels said. "We have made those and we've adopted a budget, I think, that is on track with the deficit-reduction plan we previously looked at."

The budget includes a $395,854 increase to employee benefits over original estimates. Coupled with the loss of State dollars, that means the schools were told that all purchase services, supplies, capital outlay and discretionary line items would be reduced by 20 percent.

For more on the figures, click here.

Also, Tuesday was the first day those wanting to run for School Board could pick up petitions. So far only two people - Rich Jones and Michael Connell - have done so. Jones ran and lost in 2011 and Connell took out petitions, but never turned them in.

Editor's note: In the previous version of the story, I said Mr. Connell ran for School Board. He did not. He never turned in any signed petitions. I apologize for the error. BG