Carlton School Board approves budget in the red

Carlton business manager Angela Lind said busing costs are too high, and driving a deficit for the next school year.

At their regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, the Carlton school board approved a budget for the 2024-25 school year that showed a deficit of $102,380, with $6,206,726 in estimated revenues, and $6,309,106 in estimated expenses.

"The revenues we receive for transportation do not ... come close to our expenses," Lind said. "There's a $192,000 deficit in transportation."

Surpluses in other areas ease the total expected shortage to the above figure of $102,380.

Last year's budget assumed 295 students - the district reported 315 students in March - and the estimate is 300 for the 2024-25 school year. Lind pointed out it is not a conservative number.

"It's the best guess we had at the time," she said.

After the meeting, Lind explained it is not clear if Carlton's move to a four-day school week will save anything in transportation next year except for fuel.

It all depends upon the agreement Carlton has with 4.0 School Services, the contractor that provides all the district's transportation. But Lind said she has not seen the contract, which was negotiated before she started with Carlton, so the budget is conservatively based on no cost savings in transportation.

In other action

• The board approved leasing additional space to Northern Lights Academy (NLA), the area's special education cooperative. Most smaller districts cannot meet the needs of all special education students without outside help, and NLA fills that requirement for 12 school districts in the region. Increasing demand for NLA's services requires more space.

With room to spare in the secondary school building, Carlton officials were delighted to help, recognizing the opportunity for additional revenue. The classrooms targeted will need some remodeling, which Carlton, as landlord, will need to provide to the tune of about $80,000, which will be recouped in the lease payments.

• Grant coordinator Dawn Shoberg reported on Positive Community Norms, or PCN, an effort arising from a grant to the school district from the Minnesota Department of Human Services previously funneled through REACH in Cloquet. The aim is to encourage more youth to make healthy and safe choices when it comes to not using alcohol and other drugs. PCN is research based and uses a survey of Carlton high schoolers and middle schoolers that was taken in 2023.

"It was to me amazing that between 91 and 93 percent of our kids do not use any type of illegal substances in a typical month ... a lot of times we think the perception is a lot bigger," said Shoberg.

The survey was in-depth and showed large majorities of students did not use harmful substances across all categories, including alcohol, marijuana, vaping, and cigarettes. Nevertheless, only about half or less of students correctly perceive what is really happening in this issue, implying there is a belief of more widespread use than there really is.

"We need to promote that in our community we have a lot of kids doing amazing, positive things," Shobert said.

Most of the money from the grant is directed towards getting the "science of the positive" out to kids, but Shoberg had a little extra funds which had to be spent by June 30. She ordered almost $18,000 worth of sports equipment and eight picnic tables for the school grounds.

"All these items have to have PCN messaging," she said.

• Superintendent Donita Stepan was absent, so board chair Julianne Emerson reviewed the superintendent report. Emerson relayed Stepan's plans for marketing, commenting on the 3,000 postcards to be sent out to the surrounding area this week and next. "[Stepan] talked to the area districts and let them know that we're not trying to take your students," said Emerson, provoking laughter in the boardroom.

• No new meetings with Wrenshall about consolidation are planned until at least August. Carlton invited Wrenshall to attend a July 8 work session of the Carlton board, but Wrenshall already had a meeting in Holyoke planned for that date.

"Taking a break would be the most appropriate thing for just one month and then hopefully we can get back on the same motivated wagon," board member Ryan Leonzal said.