School budget in limbo

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

May 22, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Gov. Arne Carlson has left the Bemidji School Board in limbo.

Due to Carlson's fight with the state Legislature over $150 million in tax credits he has demanded appear in the K-12 budget bill, the bill finalized at the end of this year's legislative session that ended midnight Monday remains a veto target.

That, said Director of Business Services Bryan Westerman at a budget workshop held prior to Monday's School Board meeting, has left the board with its hands tied when it comes to finalizing the district's own 1997-98 budget.

However, Westerman and Superintendent Rollie Morud told board members not much has changed since they first viewed the budget in April.

Factoring in the $800,000 the board cut in April from next year's budget, the district's projected general fund balance for June 30, 1998, will stand at just more than $1.1 million. But, according to Morud, the question the board faces in the next two scheduled budget sessions is how much of a fund balance should remain. The appropriate amount is believed to be about $2 million, he said.

"The board already had an idea that life isn't good, so the workshop was just an update as to where we're at," Morud said in an interview Wednesday. "The scenario has not changed, and we have some very difficult decisions to make."

But before the district can reach those decisions, he said, it needs to know how much money will be appropriated by the state for each student and how much more current negotiations with the district's teachers will cost the district. To convolute matters further, the district has to estimate how many students will be enrolled next year, and then figure out the money it will receive based on that number.

"One big cloud is what will Arne sign," Morud said. "When that clears, we'll know if we have got our financial house in order for next year. Maybe what we did this spring brings us into the clear."

According to information provided to the board Monday, the $1.1 million projected general fund balance after next year would be the lowest balance since 1991. But with the Legislature's proposed funding increases, a reasonable contract negotiation with the teachers and a stable enrollment, Morud said another $800,000 in cuts the board has scheduled for the end of next year might be avoided.

"My primary goal is to give the employees a reasonable raise and still be able to operate without spending into the general fund balance," he said. "Further reductions would be even more painful than those in April."

In other areas, the most current data demonstrates the district will see deficit spending in its transportation fund and will increase its capital expenditures fund by about $200,000 next year. Morud said although both funds are operated independently of the general fund, they are subsidized by the general funds when they are in deficit spending.

And finally, the district's food service, community service and debt service funds look as bleak as the others.

Morud said another budget workshop will be scheduled sometime in the first week of June, and possibly a third could be added before the board finalizes the budget at a session in late June. Next November, once the actual number of students enrolled in the district is known, the budget will be adjusted one final time.

"You probably won't see any more cuts (in next year's budget). The framework for this year is done, and what we're doing is reminding ourselves how tight operations need to be," he said. "What we're really doing is beginning to forecast what we need to do next spring."