The ROWVA School District spent money this summer on improvements to its cafeteria — something that hasn’t been done since the cafeteria was first put in during the 1970’s.
That’s according to Superintendent James Dunlap, who tells Galesburg’s Morning News on WGIL that might be it for the big projects in the district for awhile, thanks to the need to make the budget a bit leaner due to a loss of COVID-19 grant money, among other things.
“With the loss of that (“Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief”) grant, that was about $300,000 in revenue for us,” said Dunlap. “Plus, the Corporate Personal Property Replacement Tax is down by about 33 percent this year. So, we’ve lost another $200,000 to $300,000 there as well.”
Dunlap says the district has tried to levy as much in the way of property taxes as possible in recent years, so various district fund balances can weather a potential storm.
“The advantage we have, is we have very healthy fund balances, that we can weather that for a year or two,” said Dunlap. “With CPPRT, it’s only down for a couple years, because the state overpaid the last few years, so now they’re making up for it. That will rebound, just not at the levels it was previously.
Dunlap says, however, there is the potential for spending money on renovating a Family and Consumer Sciences classroom at some point, and maybe even putting in things like turf and an all-weather track.
CLICK HERE for the most recent ROWVA School District budget.
