Wrenshall, Carlton boards to meet

The full boards from the Carlton and Wrenshall school districts will meet July 9 to discuss the possibilities of consolidation. The public meeting begins at 7 p.m. at South Terrace Elementary School in Carlton. There will be no public comment opportunities as the board leaders and superintendents worked out an agenda that will grant all 12 board members a chance to talk about their vision of a combined district. Carlton chairwoman Larae Lehto announced the meeting details at her board’s regular June meeting on Monday.

The schools will create gather information on the facts and figures for each district, she said, including enrollment, course offerings, grade school class setups, staffing, bus scheduling and teacher contracts. Lehto said the goal is to have as much information available to the boards and the public so it won’t take up time in a meeting that is scheduled to last two hours. Lehto said there will be an open discussion at the start of the meeting and then each board member will get two minutes to express their views. “Say what you’d like to see,” Lehto said. There will be more discussion, including about the buildings each district has and how they could be used in a consolidation, and then more chances for board members to speak.

Carlton is facing the prospect of selling its middle- and high school property to Carlton County as it plans to expand its jail facility that abuts the school. County board chairman Dick Brenner told the Carlton board that the county will let the school know by Aug. 6 what kind of timeline it expects toward a sale commitment. In discussion at a committee of the whole meeting last week, school board members were enthusiastic about selling the school property and allowing the county to keep jail operations in Carlton. Any changes to the makeup of schools at Carlton from the sale would be at least two school years away.

Carlton has long fought to keep both an elementary and high school presence in the city. Wrenshall has balked at any consolidation that would leave its city without a school. In May, voters in Wrenshall said no to raising their taxes to make improvements at the school and add a new gymnasium. The schools have diverged on budgeting, with each board this month voting on the revenues and expenditures for the next school year. Wrenshall’s budget is $11,370 over budget while Carlton approved one that shows it more than $500,000 in the red. Carlton is also facing a balancing act for the 2018-2019 budget year that just ended. It likely won’t know until an audit starts in August just how out of balance last year’s budget was. At one point this spring, the district had more than $400,000 in expenditures over revenues. The yearly budgets approved by school boards are not the bottom lines. Any cost overruns are covered by a fund reserve required by the state. And boards are constantly updating budgets to reflect changes between revenues and expenses.

Talks between the two districts went cold last year and didn’t warm up as new board members came on. Both boards wanted to see how Wrenshall residents would vote in May before taking on any more consolidation talks. Carlton reached out last year after a resident survey showed overwhelming support for some type of cooperation with the neighboring district. Wrenshall board members said they needed a promise to keep a school in the district before it would spend any more money on consultants and talks.

The two historically small districts — each with graduating classes this year under 25 seniors — have had residents and school administrators debating consolidation for more than 50 years.