ELY — With enrollment declining, state funding failing to keep pace with inflation, and years of budget cuts already behind it, Ely Public Schools is weighing the most significant structural changes in its recent history: a switch to a four-day school week.
Superintendent Anne Oelke laid out the financial reality during a work session Monday night, walking through charts and slides that described how the district has been spending more than it takes in for years, and the tools available to fix that gap are running out.
“We’ve almost done $700,000 in reductions in the last two years, and we’re not that big of a district,” Oelke told the board and members of the public, “so it’s hard.”
The numbers driving the discussion include the fact that the district’s K-12 enrollment has fallen from 585 students in 2017-18 to just 461 in the current school year. With 38 seniors set to graduate and only around 20 to 22 kindergartners expected to enroll next fall, Oelke said that transition alone represents roughly $180,000 in lost state revenue because Minnesota funds schools based on how many students they serve.
That enrollment cliff, combined with a projected $194,000 operating deficit and rising Post-Secondary Enrollment Options costs, brings the district’s target for new reductions to approximately $500,000.
“Enrollment is our biggest revenue,” Oelke said. “The more students that we have enrolled, the more revenue that we receive from the state.”

A structural problem
Oelke was careful to put the district’s situation in broader context. Minnesota’s per-pupil funding formula has not kept pace with inflation for decades, she explained, creating an ever-widening gap between what the state pays districts and what it actually costs to run a school.
Had the state kept pace with inflation since 2002-03, the per-pupil allowance would be roughly $8,645 today, rather than the current $7,281, which represents an 18.7 percent shortfall.
“Everything going up — wages, benefits, propane, fuel, gas, food costs — and then the state revenue not staying with that has created this gap,” Oelke said. “That’s why almost every district is struggling.”
The disparity between rural and metro districts compounds the problem. Ely’s operating levy referendum brings in just $327 per pupil, compared to a statewide average of around $1,080. Metro districts, Oelke noted, can pass levies of $1,200 or more per pupil because their larger tax bases support it. Rural communities simply cannot generate that kind of local revenue yet must meet the same state academic standards and mandates.
“There’s a growing disparity between what metro and rural schools can generate,” she said. “And yet we all have to teach the same standards.”

What a four-day week would actually save
The district’s current preliminary reduction list totals approximately $412,000, still short of the $500,000 target. The four-day school week accounts for roughly $195,000 of that figure, making it the single largest item on the list. Without it, the remaining reductions amount to only about $217,000.
That $195,000 breaks down into three main categories: $133,000 in wages and benefits, primarily for hourly staff; $31,000 in transportation savings from not running buses on Fridays; and $31,000 in reduced substitute teacher costs, calculated by averaging absence rates across all five weekdays rather than simply cutting Friday.
Other items on the preliminary reduction list include cuts to the media center specialist position, physical education, music, math, Spanish, art, lobbyist contracts, paraprofessionals, and elementary staffing.
“Without the four-day school week, we only get to $217,000,” Oelke said. “I’d have to find more rocks to look under and more barrels to scrape.”

What comes next
The district’s timeline calls for a board decision on April 13. Oelke has set that date deliberately: if a four-day week is approved, significant planning and staff notification must be completed before the May 15 deadline for issuing employment assignment notices.
A community study session is scheduled for March 23 at 5:30 p.m., and Oelke said she is encouraging residents to attend. The community survey remains open through March 13.