The Waseca School Board discussed the district’s 2024-25 preliminary budget at its June 13 regular meeting, presented by Director of Business Services Matthew Moline.
The board’s regular meeting takes place every month on the third Thursday, but this month’s meeting was pushed up due to scheduling conflicts. This caused the board to go over and approve the preliminary budget a little earlier than normal.
Moline started his presentation of the preliminary budget by going over the unassigned fund balance, which will have it’s expenditures be roughly $22.2 million with revenues of $22.3 million. The project balance of the fund at the end of this month will be $4.9 million.
”Those are any dollars that the state hasn’t told us what we have to do with them,” Moline said about the unassigned fund balance.
As for the restricted funds, Moline stated that some of them are less than last year due to the COVID dollars the district received is running out. The district is going back to normal operations and having those funds be where they were before COVID.
“This should be the new normal as far as our federal dollars because right now this budget has only about $90,000 of COVID dollars in it,” said Moline.
Superintendent Dr. Eric Hudspith pointed out two restricted funds that have notable costs this year: basic skills and long term facilities maintenance(LTFM).
The district will be receiving $1.7 in revenue for basic skills; historically, it has only gotten about $750,000 a year for that fund, according to Moline. This is due to some changes implemented by the Minnesota Legislature.
The district will spend $1.8 million in basic skills, using some money already in the balance. Staff will use those funds to pay for things that were previously paid with the COVID dollars.
“A lot of that $1.8 million is just staff and benefits and those kinds of things,” Moline said.
The district will not be utilizing its full allotment of long-term facilities maintenance funds this year, so it can save up for future projects.
The district will be spending $469,510 on various projects throughout the year, but with the balance its starting out with, plus the new LTFM aid, the district expects to grow the fund by about $100,000.
“When we do the next 10-year LTFM plan, as the facility committee finishes that and we bring that to you in July, we want to make sure we are building that balance such that we can handle those things coming up, so we’re prepared,” Hudspith said to the board.
Moline stated that he anticipates the district’s expenditures to grow in the future, while the revenue might stay the same, but he assured the board that he and his staff will continue to monitor it.
The 2024-25 preliminary budget was approved by the board with a motion by board member Alyssa Bowers and a second by Theron Kruger. Board member Grant Scheffert applauded Moline’s work on the budget.
”Matt is great at answering anything if anybody has questions, and we kind of grilled him and dug into lots of details,” Scheffert said.
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