Mike Chapin is community relations director for Aurora West USD 129 and a member of the Illinois chapter of the National School Public Relations Association.
For a number of reasons, Aurora West Unit School District 129 had to react to the economic downturn a year earlier than many other Illinois districts. As a result, what the district did to involve its community in the process of balancing the 2009-10 budget may provide guidance for districts facing financial challenges this year and beyond.
Aurora West serves 12,400 students in 17 schools. It is not property wealthy. More than a third of the district’s revenue comes from the state, and operating revenue per student is approximately $1,400 below the state average.
In early 2009, the district faced a number of fiscal challenges, including plunging property values, declining enrollment, delayed state payments and the possible loss of early-childhood funding. In addition, the district was about to be hit with a multi-million-dollar reduction in state aid resulting from its successful passage of an operating rate referendum in 2007. This reduction was built into the school funding formula.
So armed with what it knew, the district began to prepare for the 2009-10 school year by developing a “what if everything goes south” budget. This meant considering staff layoffs, school closings and even elimination of popular programs.
The school board and superintendent sought active community involvement in two ways: advice and activism.
Advice
First, the board asked the public to help shape the proposed financial reduction plan. This is how the three community forums were framed. Each attendee received a form to fill out that asked:
1) What do we need to continue?
2) What do we need to change?
3) What do we need to create?
4) What do we need to cancel?
Two key thoughts here:
• The district crafted a proposed financial reduction plan and then presented it to the public, rather than introducing an un-prioritized list of cuts or starting with a blank slate.
• Second, it focused public feedback on the proposed plan.
For those who could not attend, videos of each forum were posted on the website and viewers were asked to e-mail us the same “4-C’s” feedback.
Posting forum videos on the Web turned out to be unexpectedly fortuitous. A disingenuous community activist lied to a Chicago television station reporter and said we decided to close a school without communicating or involving parents. The reporter dropped the story after we directed him to the posted video of the three-hour discussion of the proposed closing at the school with 300 parents, students and staff members in attendance.
Activism
Also at the forums — and through every other communication channel in our control — we urged parents, taxpayers, students and staff to become citizen activists.
We gave them contact information for the four state legislators who represent our district and asked them to have these legislators do the following:
• pay state bills to local school districts on time;
• pay all bills to school districts that school year;
• fully fund early childhood education the following year; and
• remove the state financial penalty on districts that pass an operating rate referendum.
We also provided the public with news media contact information and instructions on how to write letters to the editor.
Along the way, we picked up support for the removal of the state financial penalty from the mayor and city council of Aurora. That provided momentum and, soon, our four legislators aggressively worked the bill. In fact, one legislator became its chief sponsor when it moved to the House.
Bottom line, with guidance and understanding from our community, the school board made serious budget cuts, including closing a school and announcing reduction in force of 169 employees for the following school year. It could have been much worse. However, with encouragement from our community, our local legislators took the lead in legislating the removal of the financial penalty, which would have stripped our district of $7 million in state aid annually.
Results
School District 129 garnered three positive results from this process of focused community advice and activism.
• First, the media lauded the district for its open and inclusive financial reduction process.
• Second, because community advice was solicited, taken seriously and incorporated into the financial reduction plan, the public accepted the difficult decisions that resulted.
• Third, local legislators rallied to enact a law that eliminated the state penalty on successful referendum districts.