By Garrick Moritz, Gazette
Five years ago, the school was facing a potentially school-closing deficit. Substantially more funds were going out than coming in, and the Garretson School Board requested to pass a $500,000 per year opt-out measure to turn the school back around. When the school received permission from the voters to go ahead with the tax increase, they promised to do their best to reduce costs and asked the community to do its best to grow. The five years are now up, and while there have been promising signs in the right direction, a potential deficit still remains.
Due to that possibility, at the school board meeting on Monday, the Garretson School Board passed a new $350,000 tax opt-out measure.
Both a public meeting and presentation will be held in April, and a public vote on this opt-out measure has been scheduled for May 11, 2021.
Back in 2016, the school was facing financial difficulty and they passed a tax opt out measure for $500,000 per year for five years to support the general fund balance. The school was deficit spending at a rate that the administration did not feel was sustainable.
The school’s general fund is comprised from a mix of local, state and federal revenue sources. The tax levies are set by the state, and the state regulates how much can be maintained in the school’s general fund balance.
State monies are determined by a complicated per-student formula, a formula that determines how many teachers the school should have based on the number of students enrolled determined by an annual count that is taken in October.
The General Fund’s purpose is to pay for the operational costs and personnel of the district. This translates to payroll for staff and school programs.
District enrollment since 2016 increased for the first four years, but dropped off in 2020. Enrollment in 2016 was 463 students. In 2017, that increased to 477, 480 in 2018, and 494.8 in 2019. However, 2020 saw a drop of nearly all gains, with an enrollment of 465.3 students.
That drop in students has rallied, with the school district reporting a current enrollment of 477 students, but that won't count towards next year's budget.
Over the past five years. the school has made a concerted effort both to reduce costs and promote enrollment in the district, but progress has been slow. The school changed many of its maintenance practices to be self-sufficient and contracted its food services to operate at a balanced budget, rather than operating at a consistent loss.
The community has made an effort, as well. A new housing development was created, new homes and apartments have been constructed in the community, and Blue Dragon Academy completed construction of a new childcare and educational facility.
Along with declining enrollment in 2016, the school was also dealing with an issue of a bond repayment from construction projects back in 2004.
Such debt is recouped by tax levy equally across all property types, and two years ago the school’s bond debts were paid off in full, a year ahead of schedule. This resulted in an overall tax reduction, and though the school had passed the opt out for $500,000 per year, for the last two years the board has opted to take a lesser amount of $350,000.
Which is why, at this past meeting, the board opted to set this new opt out at a maximum of $350,000 for the next five years. If this is ratified by vote of the district constituents, taxes will remain steady at current rates or further decrease.
Board President Shannon Nordstrom said that the district is not obligated to take all of the $350 thousand. He pointed out that as the numbers look right now, they probably won’t be taking that full amount for the next two years.
With one-time monies from the state and COVID relief funds, the district is in pretty good shape financially right now, he said, but the district needs to realistically look to the future to a time when those monies might not be forthcoming.
“I’m happy with the work we’ve done so far,” Nordstrom said. “In 2016 we were on the verge of a potential crisis and our people stepped up to support us. This is just a continuation of that process.
"We are still deficit spending, but we’re in a much better position now than we were back in 2016 and we’ve made discernable progress toward those goals. We’re not done yet, but we’ve continued to make progress and we’ve been honest with our taxpayers about how we’re spending their money and we’ve not been doing anything extravagant, we’ve been focused on our goals and been responsible with our general fund budget. Taxes will not increase, and for our first few years of this new opt out, the board may choose not to utilize any of the opt out funds at all.”
“I also want to state for the record that we will never do an opt out like this without bringing it to a public vote. If we are asking people for their money, then we are asking for their support at the ballot box. Other districts have tried to pass these opt outs without holding a public vote, I suppose hoping that nobody would notice, and that has not ended well for them. We want a public vote and we ask for our constituents to continue to support us.”
The special election to support or reject the tax opt out will be held on May 11, 2021. Supt. Guy Johnson said that the administration team will be meeting today (Thursday, March 11) to determine how to host a public meeting and presentation about the opt-out in safety, especially in light of the ongoing threat of the Coronavirus pandemic.
However, Supt. Johnson did have good news on that front. Some of the teachers and staff have already received at least one dose of their COVID-19 vaccine, and this Friday, March 12, Avera Hospital will be hosting a shot clinic for the rest of the teachers and staff in the building. As of the board meeting on Monday, 49 staff members had already signed up to get their first dose. The second dose will be administered in early April.
We will do a full report on the school board meeting for March 8 in our next issue, but our staff felt it was important to get this information out to the public as soon as possible.
