District 205 has amassed about $217,000 in unpaid students and fees and is now considering the best way to collect.
Finance Director Jennifer Hamm says the fees consist of things like school registration fees, driver’s education fees or fees to repair damaged Chromebook laptops that were never paid.
No action was taken by the board at their meeting last night.
Hamm did list some possible strategies to collect such as leveraging things like school dances to compel students to pay.
Another option, turning over the delinquent payments to a collection agency. She says collecting fees puts a burden on staff who should be focused on other things.
“We want to take the principals and the secretaries out of the collection business,”Hamm says. “Some of our schools have lost secretaries for next year. The junior highs who have large balances, they are losing secretaries for next year with budget reduction and so hopefully starting fresh and turning these over will help recoup some of the accounts.”
Members Josh Gibb, Ellen Spittell and Amy Pickrel were in favor of further inquiring about utilizing a collection agency.
Member Tianna Cervantez said she was ok with examining strategies of collecting but raised concern about unfairly penalizing students for parents not paying.
In other business, board members voted 5-0 to expand the YMCA Solutions Program to Galesburg High School.
The social/emotional mentoring program has been at the two junior highs but 205 will now pay an additional $25,000 a year for the expansion.
