Inver Grove Heights School Board Begins Budget Reduction Preparations

Start preparing for potential budget cuts.

That was the message that Superintendent Deirdre Wells delivered to the Inver Grove Heights school board this week during the board’s regular work session.

At the meeting, Wells and Business Director Bruce Rimstad laid out a series of financial scenarios for the board members — projections that ranged from as little as $1 million in cuts in 2011-2012 school year to as much as $5.5 million in reductions in the 2015-2016 school year if one of the district’s two operating levies isn’t renewed this November.

“No one’s saying these projections are what’s going to happen or not happen,” Wells said during the meeting. Instead, the scenarios weigh different factors and potential funding situations that the district could face over the next several years, the Superintendent said.

Although its financial situation isn’t nearly as dire as the one facing the Lakeville School Board, which voted earlier this month to shear $15.8 million from the district’s budget, Inver Grove Heights, like many other districts in the state, faces declining state aid.  The district currently receives roughly $5,124 in per-pupil funding from the state — a number that has stagnated for several years, while district expenses continue to grow, Rimstad noted.

Gov. Mark Dayton’s budget proposal, unveiled earlier this week, would generate an additional $33 million over the next two years for an expansion of all-day kindergarten programs. He is also requesting $11.9 million to launch an “excellence in education award," $2 million for expanded early-childhood education and $5.1 million to use better technology as a way to close an achievement gap among students.

But the bad news for school districts across the state is that the proposed budget also delays repayment of any of the shifted state aid funds until the 2014-2015 budget. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty used the shift in aid payments to help close a funding gap in the current budget. The current statute would begin repayment of those funds in the 2012-2013 budget cycle.

Dayton isn’t the only one looking to help bolster school districts' finances. On Feb. 10, the Minnesota Senate passed a bill, SF 56, that would freeze teachers’ salaries through June, 2013. The Minnesota House of Representatives is currently considering the proposed freeze.

At its meeting on Feb. 28, the seven-member Inver Grove Heights School Board expects to receive a series of formal budget recommendations from the district’s finance committee, Rimstad said. On March 14, the group will likely take action on the recommendations. The fast timeline is driven by a state requirement that school districts deliver layoff notices to staff by April 1, Rimstad said.

 State funding isn’t the only factor that may affect the district’s budget this year. One of the district’s two levies, which generates roughly  $480 in per-pupil funding annually — or $2 million each year for Inver Grove Heights schools — is set to expire at the end of the 2012-2013 school year. On April 12, the board will meet in a workshop with financial advisors to begin planning its levy renewal campaign. A levy referendum could be put to voters this November, Rimstad said. A second operating levy, which expires in 2018, provides roughly $393 in per-pupil funding each year, the business director added.

“We gave the school board a set of assumptions that could happen, and those assumptions are based primarily on what will happen in the legislature,” Rimstad said of the financial projections. “Everything hinges on what happens legislatively for our school district, and for many school districts.”