The Crookston Public Schools Finance Committee met on Wednesday, June 18, in the District Office Conference Room. The 2026 budget was the top for the meeting ahead of the next School Board meeting on Monday, June 23. Crookston Schools Business Manager Blake Stoltman presented the committee with a preliminary budget for 2026.
The district is feeling the effects of both federal and state cuts and has been working hard to make cuts where possible and be creative in doing what is best for the students.
The district is working hard to buckle down and make things work. “We have to have a budget approved by our school board sent to the state by June 30 of this year, so, within a couple of weeks,” says Bergquist. “The preliminary budget will be acted upon at our next meeting, Monday the 23rd, and Blake will go through all the information again, probably a bit quicker than he did today, but I think the committee received it fairly well.”
Putting a budget together is made a little more difficult without knowing exactly where things stand with the government. “We all had to take a look at revenue and expenditures. We will probably get less revenue from the federal government for Title Programs and those kinds of federal programs,” says Bergquist. “But, that’s probably only 10% of our overall money that we get.”
Bergquist says some things were cleared up for the committee at the meeting. “The state just had their final session, and we are guaranteed to get 2.74 percent on the basic general ed formula for this coming year, and then next year we will get 3 percent,” says Bergquist. “We were able to finalize that.”
There are a few areas that will be receiving less money this year. The Library Aid money has been cut considerably, and the compensatory revenue for 2026 will also be less. “That, of course, is based on our student population of free and reduced,” says Bergquist. “That was a big topic during the Legislative Session this year.”
There are numerous funds that the school holds, but the biggest one is the General Fund. “It looks like we are going to have a surplus in the General Fund,” says Bergquist. “There are a number of different funds; the General Fund is the big one. That’s probably overall 75-80 percent of the total school’s budget, that’s salaries and benefits for all the employees. So, we are looking at a surplus, and I’m happy about that.”
What happens next with the budget process? “We have a full agenda of items, but then again, one of the items will be for the school board to look at the budget and they can say yep, we are going to accept that and then we would have met State Statue by having the budget approved by the school board before June 30,” according to Bergquist.
The budget will be on the Crookston School Board meeting agenda on Monday, June 23, at 5:00 p.m. in Band/Choir room at Crookston High School.
