The Crookston Public Schools Long Range Planning & Finance Committee met Wednesday to discuss the 2020-2021 district budget. Among the factors that play into the district’s budget is enrollment, which began the current year at 1,128 students and currently sits at 1,126.
Next year’s estimated enrollment is at 1,123, but Superintendent Jeremy Olson said to be conservative in budgeting, the district will budget for 1,097 students. “Whenever you’re preparing a budget, there are a certain number of assumptions you have to make,” said Olson. “Often, people don’t understand that a budget is just a plan. It’s our best guess for next year. Several assumptions have to be made regarding enrollments and state aid. We’re planning on enrollment being fairly stable from where we are today, dropping a little bit to 1,123 for projected enrollment. But, again, when we’re looking at budgeting, we want to be a bit conservative, so we are looking at a number of 1,097 into our revenue projection model. Especially in uncertain times like this, if families have to move or whatever for jobs, we want to be somewhat careful with how we go about projecting our enrollment because that has a great impact on our revenue. And if the students aren’t here, we don’t get paid for them.
School Board Chair Frank Fee asked whether there was a worry the state could redact it’s 2% budget increase on the current biennium. Olson explained to the committee that in order to do that, the state would have to pass another bill amending the biennium budget set during the 2019 session. Olson also informed the committee that the district added applied for Integration and Achievement aid dollars from the state. He added that the initial indication was positive, but they wouldn’t learn of any allocation for a couple of months. However, based on a history of approval, the district does expect to receive those funds.
The final revenue source discussed was a Special Education program for buses where the district can get 12.5% depreciation of a bus paid annually for eight years if that bus is used on a Special Education bus route. The district is looking at purchasing two buses for next school year on its alternating 2-1-2 cycle, and one of those would likely be earmarked for Special Education notes Olson. “That’s a funding stream that we’re going to look at as we purchase a new bus,” said Olson. “It looks like we’re going to put that new bus on a Special Education route to generate about 12.5% of the purchase price per year back in depreciation aid. That will allow our district to receive somewhere in the neighborhood between $12,000-15,000 extra funding for next year utilizing that form of aid. We’re trying to tap into the resources the state has provided us and make sure we are getting the best bang for our buck.”
The committee also discussed staffing impacts on the budget for next year. The district will be having contract negotiations with three employee groups this summer, including food service, custodians, and instructional aids. Once those contracts are finalized, the budget would be amended to reflect any changes. Also, on the staffing side, the committee discussed and forwarded to the full school board a reduction in sections for the second grade to three, due to a relatively small class projected to have just 69 students explained Olson. “In second grade next year, we are looking to reduce that from four sections to three sections,” said Olson. “It’s one of those interesting things where our overall enrollment grew, but in this particular grade level, we got a little smaller. That is going to go before the board on Monday for final approval, but it is a recommendation of the finance committee to go to three sections.”
The committee also discussed adding fuel pumps to the new bus garage and replacing some fencing at Highland Elementary using existing district funds. Long-term facility maintenance funds from the state will be used for the fencing project, but the full school board will need to consider the fuel pump question, according to Olson. “I’m sure people remember during the bus garage phase we chose not to add fuel pumps into the overall project because there was concern over what our strategy should be,” said Olson. “Should our strategy be utilizing gas stations in town to fill up our buses, should we have a fuel tank at the site, and what does that look like. In the absence of a consensus there, we decided not to move forward with that in the bus garage project. We are looking to tap additional resources we have at the district to start talking about do we put a fuel site at the proposed bus garage site. That is something the finance committee would like to see us move into a school board discussion.”
The final long-term plans and budget topics discussed were upgrades to the high school weight room and a possible football field and track complex. Olson said they would continue to work on plans to upgrade the weight room, and the committee agreed that they needed to continue to talk about the football field and track complex to keep it on the community’s minds. Fee noted that now wouldn’t be a good time to start more in-depth conversations on the topic for several reasons. One, because of the hits the current health crisis has had financial portfolios and the other being the feeling of being on pins and needles present in the ag community due to recent struggles.
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