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Vandalia School District sees financial score drop

The Vandalia School District’s financial profile score dropped from 3.6 on a scale of 4.0 last year to 3.25 for the year that ended June 30, a decrease that moved the district from a “recognition” to a “review” rating from the Illinois State Board of Education.
The announcement of the score was part of the district’s annual auditor’s report, which was presented Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the Vandalia Board of Education.
And it’s a shift that Superintendent Rich Well says is easily explained.
“It’s down because we have received less revenue from the state, not because our spending went up,” he said. “We have a lower score because of the debt we’re carrying. We have to make it up in other areas.”
District business manager Lori Meseke, who presented the audit to the school board, agreed with Well.
Meseke said that the score dropped “because we had deficit spending last year and because our cash balances are decreasing.” That deficit spending, she said, resulted from missing payments from the state.
After the meeting, Well said that despite the slight decrease in the score, the district is in much better shape than when he took over as superintendent seven years ago.
“Then, we would’ve been very happy with a 3.25,” he said, noting that the district’s score bottomed out that year with a 1.8 rating.
“It’s nice to see a good rating, but we know why we’re down. The state shorted us the money on state aid.
“We have bigger fish to fry than that score. Our job is to educate. We’re worried about educating kids, about providing the best possible education we can. We work at it every day.”
Also on the financial front, Well said that the district has received the second, and final, installment of its payment from county property taxes – about $1.7 million. “It’s by far the earliest that we’ve received the second one,” he said.
That infusion of cash from the property tax payments has replenished the district’s coffers, producing a $6.6 million total balance. In the four operating accounts over which the district has spending discretion, the current balance is $4.98 million.
Those funds are used to bridge the lean funding times, and keep the district from having to borrow funds to meet its financial obligations.
Last spring, the district had to dip into its surplus to meet its obligations when the state missed two of its payments.
To date, the district has received 36 percent of its total budgeted revenues and has made 22 percent of its total budgeted expenditures for the fiscal year, which began July 1. It is budgeted to receive twice-monthly state aid payments to cover the majority of the balance.
As a part of the usual reports to the board from building administrators, those principals told the school board on Tuesday that none of the schools in the district made Adequate Yearly Progress in test scores.
The state standard, which has been moving upward by 7.5 percent each year, now requires 85 percent of all students in the district to meet or exceed that mark. By 2014, the goal is for 100 percent of all students to meet the standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind initiative.
That goal has been criticized by teachers and administrators across the state as not achievable by all students, and the standard is being reviewed.
As a district, 73 percent of the students met or exceeded the standard in reading, while 75 percent met or exceeded it in math.
In a district report card document released by Well on Tuesday, he gave the current scores and listed several initiatives being undertaken to address the shortfalls.
The document also included reports from all building principals in the district, again giving their scores and outlining what they have done in response.
Well listed several areas in which the Vandalia district differs from the state average:
• Average teacher salary in Illinois is $66,614; average teacher salary in Vandalia is $55,926.
• Average administrator salary in Illinois is $110,870; average administrator salary in Vandalia is $84,994.
• Average low-income student percentage in Illinois is 49 percent; average low-income student percentage in Vandalia is 53.9 percent.
• Average attendance rate in Illinois is 94.4 percent; average attendance rate in Vandalia is 95.3 percent.
• Average mobility rate in Illinois is 13.6 percent; average mobility rate in Vandalia is 22.5 percent.
At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, the board took the following action:
• Approved an updated non-exempt (hourly) employee handbook.
• Approved the District Improvement Plan, which was created by teacher and administrator representatives from each of the district’s buildings as well as community representatives. It was coordinated by VCHS Assistant Principal Nick Niemerg.

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