Good News With Elmhurst D-205 Cost Overruns

ELMHURST, IL – Good news for Elmhurst School District 205 was quickly mentioned during a committee meeting Tuesday: Cost overruns with construction projects declined slightly.

In May 2021, officials said the projects related to a 2018 referendum were $400,000 over budget. That was out of $168 million in planned construction.

Since then, the district has regularly reported increases in cost overruns. As of March, the number stood at $18.1 million, or more than 10 percent of the referendum budget.

On Tuesday, though, the district revealed that the overruns dropped to $17.7 million.

"We shaved off some of the overages," Todd Schmidt, the district's facilities director, told the committee.

"Thank you for the shaving," committee member Courtenae Trautmann said. "That's great to hear from our perspective."

The overwhelming percentage of the cost overruns are because of the expanded scope of some projects. Supply chain issues and labor shortages also contributed.

School board members have said they would dip into the district's bank accounts to cover the added costs. They said they would not go to residents to seek another tax increase to pay for the construction.