VIRGINIA- Instead of discussing the proposed new property tax levy at last week’s meeting, ISD 2142 School Board members focused their attention on a tighter budget for the 2022-23 school year and how to get more state revenue by recruiting more students to the district.
“So much of our revenue is based on enrollment, so even a small fluctuation in enrollment causes some huge impacts to funding,” district finance director Kim Johnson said. “Last year, with COVID, we lost 130 students, that’s $1.3 million. That’s a lot of money, and all of our staffing was set before we knew what was happening. We can’t let teachers go because their classes are smaller. We have picked up enrollment from the adopted budget, but we haven’t gotten it all back from the loss in fiscal year 2021. We’ve gotten about 80 of those kids back, but we’re still down 50 kids at $10,000 a kid. That’s a lot of money.”
Johnson advised caution on the suggestion that the district use additional COVID money expected soon to offset losses. “We have to get pre-approval for any significant spending of those COVID dollars,” she said. “It’s partly restricted, depending upon how you’re going to spend it. We can use it for lost enrollment, we can use it for staffing costs, but that’s one-time money. We want to make sure that any of the changes we’re making are going to be long term.”
Earlier in the meeting, board members agreed to sign on to a U.S. Congressional resolution calling for the federal government to fully fund the mandates required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for special education services, mandates that currently receive only 14- percent funding from the feds, with the rest of the cost falling on states and local districts. Johnson returned to that discussion in her budget comments, noting that the district’s total costs for special education are a little over $5 million.
“We only get reimbursed $3 million (from federal and state sources), so we’ve got $2.2 million of unreimbursed expenses,” she said.
Board member Troy Swanson homed in on the idea of generating more revenue through increased enrollment.
“We’re talking about enrollment being the main thing,” he said. “We really need to start marketing ourselves again.”
Swanson described some of the past activities he had been involved with in marketing the district. While there’s too little time with a looming January deadline for next year’s enrollment to do anything with marketing for 2022-23, the district could begin planning now for a marketing initiative to get more students for the following year.
“I just think that we need to talk about ourselves and what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and the programs that we offer,” Swanson said. “We need to tell people what we’re doing and ask them to join us.”
A lengthy discussion among members ensued, debating the merits and shortcomings of various kinds of marketing activities, and by the time the discussion dwindled down all appeared in agreement that a marketing plan for future recruitment was well worth exploring.
Tax levy
When discussion returned to next year’s levy, it was apparent that the recent refinancing of a significant portion of the district’s building and construction bonds will yield at least a modest benefit to taxpayers. The board, with little discussion, unanimously adopted a new levy will that will tap $6.954 million from the district’s taxpayers, down slightly from the $6.965 million levied in the current fiscal year. The refinancing is set to save the district $422,366 in debt service costs next year.
The total referendum market value levy also declined by $178,829 to $1,719,322, helping to offset a $609,604 increase in the total net tax capacity general levy driven primarily by a $402,000 increase in long-term facilities maintenance.
Contract in limbo
After a tentative mediated contract agreement with Education Minnesota Local 1046 was rejected by the district’s teachers on Nov. 3, district and union negotiating teams returned to the table for additional mediated negotiations.
“We had mediation again on Dec. 2, a full day of mediation,” Superintendent Reggie Engebritson said. “After six hours of being in mediation we came up with our final best offer for the teachers’ union, so that’s what you have in front of you.”
A final best offer indicates that the parties were unable to come to consensus on a contract proposal, putting the board in the position of unilaterally offering a contract for the union to vote on.
Engebritson said a major sticking point was a $2,000 stipend for all teachers in the first year of the contract that the union instead wanted incorporated into the salary matrix.
“We held firm in not having the money on the matrix,” Engebritson said. “The second year we kept the same, a 1.25-percent increase in the salary schedule.”
To offset the $2,000 stipends, district negotiators took away proposed increases in contributions to a 403(b) retirement plan and “took away VEBA contributions for single and family (health) insurance,” Engebritson said.
“Those are the big changes,” Engebritson said. “I heard yesterday from the union that they will vote on this contract on Jan. 12.”