Letter: We discovered $17 million error in school projection; decision on closings should be postponed

On Oct. 13, District 65 released a proposal to address its financial challenges, with over $20 million in cuts that eliminate programs, cut staff and close two schools. The following week, we discovered a $17 million error in the five-year projection. When we shared this with the administration and the school board, we expected it would prompt the question: Which cuts are no longer necessary? If their original proposal was sufficient, lower expected costs should mean that fewer cuts are needed to get to the same financial outcome. Yet on Oct. 26, the administration didn’t propose reversing even $1 of the cuts that have painful real-world effects on hundreds of D65 students, employees, and families. Instead, they chose a disappointing spreadsheet solution: Increase the projected reserves. This is unacceptable. We urge the school board to reverse planned cuts where it can. We are providing the following information to aid the effort. Fixing the $17 million error creates sig