Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The District 186 school board has difficult staffing decisions ahead because of a stubborn budget deficit.

The district is under a three-year deficit reduction plan with the Illinois State Board of Education. “We have to be at a balanced budget after three years,” said district business manager Steve Miller. “We could have made a whole bunch of cuts last year. We made a few cuts; a lot of that was through attrition. We have this next year, FY 27, and then FY 28. At the end of FY 28, we have to have a balanced budget.”

Miller added the district is having to shift money around to meet its payroll. “We will be using the line of credit earlier this year than we ever have in the past at this next payroll which will come this next week,” Miller said. “It is imperative that we make these cuts.”

“The fund balance has been depleted enough that we don’t really have extra money to cover the deficit that we currently have,” said superintendent Jennifer Gill. “We’re getting level funding, if not less funding, in every single source that we utilize to pay for public education.”

There was one more difficult discussion Monday: that of the school calendar for the 2026-27 school year. While a staff vote of calendar options favored beginning school during the Illinois State Fair, that option prevailed by 27 votes over more than 1,000 votes cast. The board voted 7-0 to continue the custom of beginning class the day after the fair ends, which this year is Monday, Aug. 24. An earlier vote – to begin school during the fair and thus honor the most popular option among staff – drew only one Yes vote, from board member Micah Miller.

“There is no actual safety plan in place for how students are going to be safe those first three days of school,” said board member Sarah Blissett, whose subdistrict is the north end. “There is no actual transportation plan in place as to how busing is going to work with the one-way traffic around the fair.” She said the overlap of the worlds of District 186 and the fair is a bad start for, say, a Ridgely Elementary School kindergartner.

Said board member Debi Iams: “The process hasn’t changed. The board has taken input from the calendar committee, and we’re making a decision. That’s what we have done for many years. What we haven’t done for many years is start school during the fair, and that’s what I don’t think we can do.”

After the vote, Gill said the district might consider returning to creating calendars three years at a time.