Preliminary budget: district projects modest year‑end surplus while warning state aid uncertainty will shift costs locally

The D C Everest Area School District’s finance director presented a preliminary budget update to the school board, reporting a projected year‑end surplus and warning that the state budget outlook could require locally borne revenue adjustments.

Kelly (staff member) told the board the district currently projects a conservative year‑end surplus of roughly $500,000 to $1 million, driven largely by salary‑fringe savings, such as health‑insurance underspending tied to employee turnover and open enrollment timing. "We'll have a year end surplus," Kelly said, adding staff will provide a more confident estimate at the July meeting after June payrolls and audit preparations complete.

Kelly and the superintendent discussed the state Joint Finance Committee (JFC) actions and how those tentative decisions might affect district revenue. Kelly reported the JFC discussed increases to special education aid and other categorical programs but said the district’s estimate is that the high‑cost special‑education pot will not fully meet hopes and that actual reimbursement rates are uncertain. Kelly described how high‑cost special‑education aid currently pays back a small percentage of qualifying spending and said the JFC item could move that percentage higher but not to the level advocates sought.

Most notably, Kelly told the board the budget language circulating at the state level would include a $325 per‑pupil revenue limit increase; the district has modeled that amount into its preliminary projections but noted the entire $325 would be reflected as increased local levy authority unless the state increases equalization aids. "Most notably, I think that, we've all heard and we've been talking about tonight, that $325 per pupil increase stuck," Kelly said, and emphasized that without offsetting state aid the increase shifts cost to local taxpayers.

Board members asked how the district plans to manage the local levy impact. Kelly said the district can reduce debt defeasance in the short term to limit immediate mill‑rate increases: "We're just reducing that defeasance and we can keep and this is, an estimate... We'll continue to refine that fund 10 and that defeasance levy so that it can stabilize both." In other words, the district would slow its extra debt payoff to temper tax rate increases while pursuing balance in the operating budget.

Kelly also told the board she used a conservative 18% health‑insurance increase assumption in the preliminary numbers but expects to receive firm insurer quotes in the coming week and to present updated figures in July. She said federal and grant allocations for the next fiscal year will arrive in July and could adjust preliminary balances.

No formal budget adoption occurred; board members were asked to approve routine interim spending for summer operations and to expect repeated budget refinements before final budget adoption in October.