Oswego District 308 looks at school budget cuts

OSWEGO, Ill. (WLS) -- Oswego District 308 officials are looking to cut its budget, but some parents are worried about the possibility of reducing extracurricular activities.

The school board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Monday at Oswego East High School, where administers said they look forward to public comment and suggestions about where to cut the budget.

The board is not slated to take action Monday night.

"I'm not going to predict what happens this evening, but certainly the board is committed to all of our extracurricular activities," said Theresa Komitas, the district's director of communications.

State funding for the district, which includes 21 schools in four suburbs, has not kept up with its expenses, administrators said.

Parents are worried about extracurricular activities.

"I would hope that people see this as a community issue," said parent Heather Timmins

Debbie Nuttle said both of her sons have benefitted from programming in the district.

"We understand that everything is up for review and it should be, everything should be looked at to make sure that we are doing the best we can for our kids," Nuttle said.

Monday morning, the school board president posted a letter that said, in part: "The options that were presented to school board at the November 27th meeting, were just that, options. We need everyone to understand these options are nowhere close to making the final list of budget cuts. ..... We are also going to slow this process down. Since the November 27th meeting we have received more than 300 budget reduction recommendations from the community. As a result, we need to take a step back and reconsider our timeline."