School district will dip into reserves to bridge budget cuts

State revenues have fallen far enough below projections that Gov. Steve Bullock’s budget office recently announced $97 million in spending cuts, of which schools and health programs will receive the brunt. The Office of Public Instruction, which oversees public schools, will lose at least $19 million over two years.

The cuts will cost School District 6 about $93,000 per year, district superintendent Steve Bradshaw said last week.

Bradshaw explained that the district doesn’t have an exact tax valuation yet, so the $93,000 is an estimate for this year and next.

The news of the cuts came a little too late for the district to make program changes for the upcoming year.

“At this point, we’re going to just take it out of reserve,” Bradshaw said. “We’re too late in the game right now.”

Bradshaw noted that he prefers to save reserve funds for catastrophes.

State law mandates that a maximum of 10 percent of school budgets be kept in reserve. The elementary runs about 7.5 percent per year and the high school about 8 percent.

If the cuts remain high, that’s when Bradshaw will be forced to make changes.

“Then we gotta figure out what we can reduce,” he said. “Everything we do is based on the amount of students we have.”

The elementary numbers are stable, but the high school has seen drops in enrollment as the larger classes with 200 or more students have graduated.

If state funding trends continue, the district will be “concerned.”

“In two years, if the budget is the same, we’re going to have to think about making cuts,” Bradshaw said. “We hope that our enrollment at the elementary level has stabilized. It’s not any fun if you have to cut programs.”