Carlton board tackles increased deficit and declining enrollment

Carlton school board members are facing the double whammy of both student numbers and state dollars dropping even more quickly than anticipated.

At Tuesday’s Carlton school board meeting, district business manager Norm Nelis warned of a revised budget that increased the estimated deficit due mostly to declining enrollment.

“We had budgeted for a reduction of 25 kids … the deficit for the revised budget we're putting out is more than what we have in the adopted [budget] primarily because the number of kids were down,” Nelis said.

In fact, Carlton is looking at a decline of an additional 27 stud...