Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
At their meeting on Monday, Aug. 12, the New Rockford-Sheyenne School Board discussed a preliminary budget for the 2024-25 school year, which shows the district nearly $5,000 in the black.
But that preliminary budget hadn’t accounted for a sudden expense of $70,000, leaving the district in a difficult financial situation.
The 2024-25 preliminary budget was presented to the school board by NR-S Business Manager Dave Skogen, and it shows total estimated revenue at approximately $5.070 million, while expenses were expected to total $5.065 million.
However, Skogen told board members that the estimated expenses are no longer accurate, because – just a few hours earlier – the East Central Center for Exceptional Children (East Central) delivered what Skogen called a “budget buster.”
He informed school board members that East Central had increased the cost of their services to NR-S by $70,000 at a board meeting that morning, suddenly putting the district’s anticipated expenses more than $65,000 over and above their estimated revenue for the coming school year.
Adding to the budget woes, the news came days after NR-S submitted their preliminary budget to Eddy County. With the deadline for submitting preliminary budgets having passed, the district is no longer allowed to increase taxes and adjust their revenue to account for the added expense.
Therefore the district will have to find some other way to balance the budget before the final version is due on October 10, or else they will likely deficit spend during the 2024-25 year.
Meanwhile, the increase itself of $70,000 from East Central was questioned by school district officials and board members at Monday’s meeting.
NR-S Superintendent Natalie Becker said the increase stems from the district’s speech pathology needs, but she, along with Skogen, suggested the total increase still doesn’t add up with their figures.
“The numbers aren’t matching,” said Becker at Monday’s meeting.
Becker told the board she’ll be asking more questions of East Central in the coming days in hopes of understanding how costs have ballooned to this extent.
Two years ago – for the 2022-23 school year – the district budgeted just under $500,000 for East Central’s services. That price has now swelled to more than $600,000, and the NR-S board wants to know why.
In recent years, the relationship between East Central and NR-S has been rocky to say the least. Although NR-S has twice discussed leaving the East Central Special Education Unit in the past several years, that possibility was not brought forth at this meeting.
NR-S officials did, however, remind themselves of the potential cost savings they calculated back in 2021, when the district last considered alternatives for special education.
Skogen told the Transcript on Thursday that communications between NR-S and East Central since Monday’s meeting have been open and amicable as they work to understand the reason for increased costs.
Meanwhile, Skogen also pointed out a few concerns that may need to be addressed in the not-so-distant future. Namely, that the school is employing a number of long-term substitutes this year, which don’t qualify for the same benefits fully-licensed teachers receive.
Board members were told that if NR-S was completely staffed with full-time and fully-licensed teachers, the district would be facing more than $100,000 in additional expenses.
In other business, the school board approved a minor change to the dress code, which will allow fifth graders to wear hats in school. Prior to the change only students in grades 6-12 were allowed to wear hats.
The next regular meeting of the New Rockford-Sheyenne School Board will be on Monday, Sept. 10 at 7 p.m. Prior to that regular meeting, a tax hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m.
