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Midyear finance report: meal program growth, improved transportation reliability, and reduced overtime
Summary
Assistant Superintendent Ben Rehrig reported growth in the child nutrition program that reduced the program deficit, improved bus ridership and reliability, declining substitute/overtime costs in several areas and capacity observations at district schools.
Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Ben Rehrig presented the districts Quality, Budget and Data (QBAD) midyear report, highlighting child nutrition gains, stronger transportation reliability, and some expense reductions.
Rehrig said breakfast service increased 43% year-over-year and lunch service increased by 16% as the state program expanded free meals to more students; those gains also improved the child nutrition programs financial position, producing a $130,000 improvement in the programs net position through the period cited. He credited Child Nutrition staff for operationalizing the districtwide expansion of free meals.
On transportation, Rehrig described improved day-to-day ridership compared with last years counts and reported the district was on day 119 without a scheduled late route (meaning the district had enough drivers to avoid repeatedly looping late routes). Rehrig credited improved staffing and HR hiring for transportation reliability and noted recent counts showed ridership 11% above last year on a sampled day.
Rehrig also reported declines in legal expenses through February (a large year-to-year drop at that point, but he cautioned some legal costs had been incurred since that slide was prepared) and lower certificated substitute and extra-time costs in several categories; transportation overtime was down more than 40% year to date. He flagged facility-use revenues of about $116,000 through February from external users, noted custodial attendance remained a concern though slightly improved, and described energy-use efficiency gains offset by rising per-unit energy costs.
Rehrig reviewed capacity at schools and noted Black Hills High School showed untapped capacity while some elementary buildings were near capacity and using portables. He closed by recognizing staff efforts across finance, transportation, facilities and child nutrition.
