June 26,2023 Regular Meeting

Our school board meeting was held at the district office, beginning at 5:30pm, where all meetings will be held until further notice. Save the date! Grand opening for the new Owatonna High School will be held September 23, 2023. This fall, there will also be a farewell open house at the old high school building. More info to come!

Beware, this is a long update with lots of information!

Mission Moment given by Superintendent Elstad recognized 280 combined years of service to Owatonna Public Schools by 13 retirees in 2023. Topping the list is Ms. Julie Bauer, Achievement and Intervention Teacher at McKinley with 43 years of service! Thank you for your dedication and hard work for our students.

The bulk of the meeting was spent reviewing the final budget for the 2022-2023 school year, as well as reviewing the preliminary budget for the 2023-2024 school year. Our 2022-2023 school year ended well financially. Owatonna school district revenue for this last school year was $68.7 million. (As a comparison, the Anoka Hennepin school district budget is about $680 million). Budget details can be found on the district website under the heading Our District: school board: board meetings: agenda and minutes: June 26, 2023 meeting notes: VI Reports, A. 2022-2023 amended budget. https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/1055?meeting=586657

The 2023-2024 preliminary budget was reviewed. Budgets can change for many reasons over the school year. Some of these reasons include changes in grant money, staffing, and contracts. After meeting with Lori Volz, I have come to realize that funding for school districts takes a lot of time and investigative work in order to find and maximize the available funding given. Grants can be very complex, some have specific requirements (timing and use of money, specific applications for the money such as curriculum or programming) and take much time to apply for. Some grants, such as the achievement and integration grant (A&I) needs to be applied for yearly. For the next school year, with the legislation just passed, our General Education fund will increase in Special Education funding and compensatory aid. This coming school year will also be the district’s last year for receiving specialized COVID-19 funding, so the additional funding we will be receiving will help cover the $2.5 million loss. Estimated revenues at this time add up to $77 million. Preliminary expenditures are $79 million. Our unassigned fund balance goal is 8-10% and currently we are at 12.7%. Another recent legislation that passed allows hourly employees to take unemployment benefits over the summer months if they choose this option rather than take a summer working position. So far this year, we have about 60% of our hourly employees that have applied for unemployment benefits. The estimated cost to the district if all hourly employees receive these benefits is about $750,000. The preliminary budget has this funding set aside in the assigned fund balance.

We also reviewed and discussed a graph showing Special Education Revenue Expenditure Comparison. For many years, government funding has not met the expenses required for Special Education. Most, if not all, districts have to take funding from their General Education fund to make up this shortfall. This is called the Special Ed Cross Subsidy. With the recent legislation passed increasing the cross subsidy funding, this closes the gap a bit. When I see this graph, I notice that the need continues to increase as well as the funding, however if the need didn’t increase, the funding would almost meet the entire need. So then, why is the Special Education need going up? At this time, we don’t know. Is it due to increased cost of services? Is it due to increased numbers of students needing services? Is it due to special ed students needing more services than what we’ve had in the past? I suspect that it’s all of the above and the cause of this is multifactorial. So then, we have evidence of a true complex problem that deserves attention. What are we doing to investigate this and find a solution?

Lori also explained and showed a graph showing enrollment numbers which are stable for this coming year but projected to decline over the next few years. From 2019 to 2023, Owatonna school district lost approximately 100 students which equates to about $1 million in funding for the district. There is speculation as to why enrollment in public school is down (especially over the last 4 years) as this appears to be a nationwide trend, with the pandemic topping the list. There is also a concern about declining birth rates through the pandemic and as families choose to have fewer children. However, we cannot neglect the fact that more parents are concerned with public school education, academic outcomes, and alternative ideologies finding their way into some classrooms. In Owatonna, with the improvements in our career pathways program and the growing online school, we are hopeful that enrollment will remain stable or continue to grow.

During Board Forum, Eric Schuster asked Bob Olson to discuss possible flooding at the new high school. Bob explained that while the roof and draining systems were in progress of completion, there was water leaking and evidence of mold on some sheetrock. He reassures that the roof and draining systems are complete and the sheetrock was replaced, and there is no longer any water leaking, flooding, or mold in the new high school.

Administrative report was given by Superintendent Elstad, in part noting that the upcoming mandate to incorporate Ethnic Studies into curriculum will be a 2-3 year arduous process and community members will have the opportunity to review and give input for this. This is a hot topic for those concerned about critical race theory and marxist ideologies being incorporated into curriculum. Stay tuned!

Several votes were taken, all passed 6-0. These votes included an agreement to increase pay for casual employees which has not been raised for a few years and helps Owatonna to stay competitive in the job market. This also included a vote to increase cabinet members salaries by 4% which is the average rate of increase taking into account inflation, annual reviews, etc. We approved the amended 2022-2023 budget and preliminary 2023-2024 budget. The new school year’s school board meeting schedule was approved, as well as the 2024-2025 school calendar. We approved the ongoing membership into MN School Boards Association which “supports and empowers MN public school boards through advocacy, board development, policy and legal guidance.” The membership to Schools for Equity in Education was also approved. To clarify, this is a lobbying organization that helps schools from a financial and tax perspective and provides resources. https://schoolsforequity.org/resources/. To ensure optimal revenue for our community education programs, the board approved a resolution to certify the 2022 new census figure of 31,334 for the city of Owatonna, thereby allowing new calculations for the 2023 payable 2024 levy of ISD #761.

Bob Olson briefly reviewed the district office maintenance facility remodel contract award. This was presented as a letter from Kraus-Anderson, the construction manager, including a list of recommended bids to complete the renovations of the existing OHS that will become district offices and maintenance facilities. The total of the bids came in under the expectation and totals $10,809,736. Superintendent Elstad noted that the district made every effort to be able to fund the renovations with previous bond money and other funds so that the district will not have to ask for more money to complete this project.

Next, policy revisions, a second reading with a vote to approve the policy revisions was completed. Comments on this revolved mainly around the field trips policy as defined for shared time students. Board members are allowed to give input to the policy committee and the committee decides on final policy and presents this to the board. In this case, the policy committee determined that it was in the best interest of the teachers and for students’ safety to allow field trips for shared time students for only the public school classes or instruction the shared time students’ are involved in.

Gifts to the district were approved, the largest being $100,000 from the Owatonna Foundation for the Foundation Room at the new OHS. A large donation was made from the Music Boosters of Owatonna for cello and bass repairs, as well as a large donation from the Elk’s Lodge for the Husky Angel Fund. There have been many other donors with smaller, but not insignificant, gifts to our district. Thank you!

Have a wonderful and safe July 4th holiday… O say does that star spangled banner yet wave… May America always be the land of the free, home of the brave!