Budget approved despite mysteries

Esko school board members approved a budget Monday for the next school year that superintendent Aaron Fischer referred to as somewhat “mythical.”

That’s because the budget was created without knowledge of three critical indicators: how much the state is allocating to the school district, final results of contract negotiations with employees, and student count, which Fischer said they usually don’t know for certain until September.

“We had to put in some assumptions because our legislators are again — surprise, surprise — not done, so we really don’t know what the funding will look like,” he told board members, adding that they do have some ideas from legislative updates but nothing will be certain until a state budget is passed.

Janet Halonen, in her final meeting as Esko business manager before retiring June 30, explained to the board that she had to go back a couple years to get estimates of expenses and revenues before the pandemic disrupted school districts, including gate receipts, supplies, even utilities.

“There was a lot of looking back, I don’t know how accurate that’s going to be,” Halonen said.

The total estimated revenues for fiscal year ’22, which starts July 1, was $15,215,941, according to the budget overview. The total expenses were estimated at $15,335,515.

Although the budget showed expenses higher than revenues, the school district has an estimated fund balance of $5,755,384. Additionally, there are three “pots of money” from the state and federal government for Covid relief that weren’t included in the budget, Halonen said, because the school is still figuring out how it can spend those funds, for the most part.

The board also approved shifting funds to restore the Community Education fund balance after a fund shift to take care of some pandemic-related items.