ELMHURST, IL – In a mailer to residents this month, Elmhurst School District 205 touted an award in financial reporting.
Last week, a critic called the honor a “pay-to-play scheme.”
Late last month, Patch reported the state placed the local district into the lowest financial category, known as “watch” status. Of the state’s 851 districts, only a handful got this designation.
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At last week’s school board meeting, Tom Chavez, a candidate in the April 1 board election, noted the low rating.
And given this fact, he said he questioned why the district recently received the Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Association of School Business Officials International.
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In response to Chavez’s public records request, the district released the receipt for the district’s spending of $1,275 for an item labeled “Certificate of Excellence-District Budget $100-$250M.”
He said that showed the district is not being sought out for excellence, but is taking part in a “pay-to-play scheme.”
“It’s really quite dishonest,” he said.
According to the association’s website, the fee pays for the group to review a district’s level of financial reporting to determine whether it should get the certificate. The site does not indicate that the fee guarantees the honor.
During the same board meeting, Scott Duenser of audit firm Wipli spoke about the certificate in presenting the district’s latest audit.
He said the certificate recognizes a district’s level of financial reporting, but does not assess fiscal performance.
Duenser also said the district’s “estimated 2025 financial profile designation” is “recognition” status. That’s the state’s highest financial category, which is where 90 percent of districts fall.
Nothing on the Illinois State School Board of Education’s website indicates this upgrade. The next batch of ratings is expected to come out later in 2025.
The district’s recent mailer promoted the same information about the improvement to “recognition.” However, it failed to say that the district is now in the state’s lowest category.
In his presentation, Duenser said the downgrade was a result of when the district applied the receipt of property taxes for accounting purposes.
Four years ago, he said, the district deferred the taxes until the following budget year, reducing its fund balances by half overnight.
The state’s fund balance-to-revenue rate is one of the most heavily weighted when setting financial scores, Duenser said.
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A year ago, the district decided to apply the taxes to the current budget year, which is the way most school systems do it, he said.
“The district has wide latitude on when to recognize property tax revenue as long as it’s disclosed, as long as you don’t change it every year,” Duenser said. “Now you’re reporting on it the way most of your peers do.”
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