Robbinsdale School Board approves 2024-25 budget

The Robbinsdale School Board approved the district’s 2024-25 budget during its June 24 meeting.

For all district funds, the projected revenue for the upcoming fiscal year is $287.17 million with projected expenditures of $286.27 million.

For the district’s general fund, the figures for the coming year are $201.55 million in revenue and $200.8 million in spending. The general fund covers the day-to-day operations of the school district, including salaries and benefits for teachers, administrators and staff members, teaching supplies, technology, transportation and money spent to operate and repair buildings in the district.

The budget was detailed in a June 4 work session with a presentation led by Virginia Verbrugge, the school district’s assistant director of finance. The general fund is factoring in a state aid formula increase of 2%.

The general fund also assumes a projected enrollment decline of 259 students to a projected enrollment of 10,400 for the coming school year. According to the district, enrollment for Robbinsdale Area Schools has fallen by 1,690 students (about 17%) to over the past five years.

Planning for the general fund has had to face $17.4 million in cuts, which was detailed in a May 13 post to the Robbinsdale Area Schools website. According to the district, the cuts are needed due to declining enrollment, expiring COVID-19 grant money, increases to labor contracts, significant inflationary costs to daily expenses as well as state funding that has not kept pace with inflation.

“We’re doing our best to make sure the cuts we make stay as far from the classroom as possible. But the reality is each school will see reductions in staff,” Interim Superintendent Marti Voight said in the post. “District leadership and our Board of Education are committed to being good stewards of our students and staff, our buildings and our tax dollars.”

According to the district, cuts this year have included leaving open positions vacant, reducing purchased services, pausing out-of-state travel and other smaller reductions. Nearly $4 million in cuts will be made at the district office, including the elimination of positions from directors to office personnel. Another $11 million in reductions will be made at the schools, mostly by eliminating staff. And about $2 million in cuts will be made to other line items, such as contracted services and equipment purchases, along with various cost efficiencies.

Included in the cuts are 50 full-time licensed staff costing $5.37 million; nearly 48 full-time education assistants costing $2.09 million; overtime, extended contracts and extra-duty pay costing $1.41 million; 15 student services employees (including teachers on special assignments) costing $1.71 million; 10 program assistants costing $680,000; four administrative positions totaling around $973,000; and six building administration positions costing $932,000.

The budget was approved on a 4-2 vote, with School Board Directors ReNae Bowman, Sharon E. Brooks, Greta Evans-Becker and John Vento voting yes. Directors Kim Holmes and Caroline Long voted no, and Director Helen Bassett abstained from voting.

“In a budget this large, nobody’s ... fairytale happy over all of it – and that’s to be expected,” Bowman said prior to the board’s vote. “But in the end, from my perspective, as I watched the budget be created for this year, I really saw a sense of fairness and listening across boards and across the district too, and resident and student voice was added. I wish we had a different budget just from the dollars and cents piece of it, but I feel very confident about the work that was done to put this budget on paper.”