Editor's note: This story was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.
Teachers, parents and community members filled the gym bleachers at Grant Middle School Tuesday evening to voice their concerns following the Illinois State Board of Education’s recent certification of Grant District 110 as being in financial difficulty.
The district’s board of education meeting was relocated from its usual setting in the school library to accommodate the crowd.
The state board took the action on March 13 because District 110 — which has been on the “financial early warning” list for fiscal years 2021 and 2022 is expected to be on the “financial watch” list for fiscal year 2023 — failed to submit financial information like its annual budgets to the state by required deadlines.
Additionally, the district has regularly had a deficit in its operating funds, relies on working cash bond issues to supplement revenue in those funds and failed to apply for federal grants dating back to fiscal year 2020 in some program years, according to the state Board of Education.
The seven-member school board at Grant District 110 — three of whom have been appointed in the past year — did not take any action related to the district’s financial difficulty certification at Tuesday’s meeting, but it will vote to approve its financial plan to submit to the state board of education at its April 23 board meeting. The deadline for the district to submit the plan is April 29.
Thirteen people spoke during the public comment period of Tuesday’s board meeting, expressing their disappointment with the situation and frustration with the lack of transparency and accountability from the district’s administration. Many aimed their ire specifically at longtime Superintendent Matt Stines.
“Doing right by students is a district who puts students first, fighting for every possible dollar and educational resource available on time,” said Rachel Pehle, vice president of the Grant-Illini Federation of Teachers and social studies teacher at Grant Middle School.
The union — which represents 76 teachers and staff in Grant District 110 — has called upon the board to remove Stines.
“A district that does right by students deserves someone responsible with the dollars that affect our kids and our community,” Pehle said.
She added that the union knows that once the school board members review the “financial irresponsibility and incompetency,” they will choose to honor their oath of respecting taxpayers’ interest and protecting the district’s assets.
“Providing our students with a great education is paramount to us,” Pehle concluded. “We are in desperate need of new leadership to get out of the financial mess to be able to do just that.”
Theresa Mathis, a mom to two children who attend Illini Elementary, said she felt “blindsided” by news of the district’s financial difficulty certification.
“Day to day, these incredible teachers at this school have never failed to inform us on the progress of our children and the challenges that they are facing,” Mathis said. “So why can’t leadership in this district hold the same standards and inform these parents of the district’s financial status?
“We need clear answers as to how we got to here.”
Mathis and other speakers also expressed concern about the district losing out on funding that could benefit students and allow them to excel at and beyond District 110.
Other comments from attendees included praise for the teachers within the district, inquiries about the district’s Title I funding for low-income students that has been frozen since 2021 as well as the tax implications of the district’s regular working cash bond sales, and dissatisfaction with the reasons Stines has provided for the district’s financial difficulty certification.
Prior to the public comments, Stines spoke about school finance and the history of the district’s deficit spending.
He started by stressing that the district will “absolutely not” be cutting any programs for kids or positions of any staff, nor will the district go bankrupt and cease to exist.
“None of those things are going to happen,” Stines said.
He said the district has worked hard to get programs back in place following drastic cuts the district had to make in 2011 and a referendum the community later supported.
In the 2014 general election, voters passed a referendum 1,642-530 to increase the district’s tax rate for its educational fund from 1.42% to 2.27%.
“Our community came out and supported a referendum, which has kept us sustainable,” Stines said.
The referendum didn’t entirely solve the district’s financial woes, however, because the 2007-09 recession led to a decrease in the overall property value within the district, meaning the district’s largest source of revenue took a hit from which it didn’t fully recover until tax year 2022, he said.
Despite the deficit spending and how the district has to manage its books with working cash bonds, “we made a commitment through strategic planning last year to bring programs back,” he said, including art, physical education and other resources.
“We’re committed to doing what’s right by kids, and we’re going to continue to do that,” he said.
Stines continued his remarks by explaining that the district has been deficit spending since the early 1990s and relied on selling working cash bonds to supplement its revenue. The working cash fund in the budget is similar to an individual’s savings account for rainy day expenses, he said.
The district is not over-extending its debt limitation, so even with issuing the bonds, the district has sufficient access to credit if a major project were to come up, Stines said.
The loans the district makes from its working cash fund to other funds within its budget aren’t reflected in its annual financial reports, leading to the negative numbers, he said.
With regard to the late submission of documents to the state, Stines reiterated that the district’s bookkeeper position has experienced a lot of turnover. As a result, he said accounts weren’t balanced, which led to a snowball effect of delayed submissions.
From here, the district is going to adjust its internal controls, Stines said. The district has also hired an outside auditor to come in and “scrub the books” to help get things corrected.
“We are going to get the district back on track. We’re going to use some outside help to get the books balanced, and we’re going to get back to good from a bookkeeping standpoint by July 1, and then we’ll roll into fiscal year 25 where we should,” Stines said.
Kelly Smits is a reporter with the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
