Proviso Township High Schools District 209 Supt. Jesse Rodriguez is pushing for the D209 school board to adopt a bi-annual budget, which he said would make the district more financially prepared for a range of large-scale initiatives that are on the horizon, including the installation of math and science academies inside of Provisos East and West, and major capital work that is part of the district’s facilities master plan.
“We’re proposing to make the budget process two years, because we have the facilities master plan and some other big projects in mind,” Rodriguez said in an interview earlier this month. “It makes more sense to do a two-year budget, as opposed to a one-year budget.”
The superintendent said that 11 months isn’t enough time to budget for some of those more complex projects that require millions of dollars to fund and may be implemented over several years.
“If we didn’t have this facilities master plan and these other big dreams, then one year would be fine,” Rodriguez said.
The superintendent said that he has presented the idea for switching to a bi-annual budget to the board’s finance committee, where Rodriguez said it was received “enthusiastically.”
Rodriguez’s proposal still has to be voted on by the full board, but it’s unclear when that will happen.
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