District Financial Information

In considering the upcoming levy vote, I wanted to provide links to some of the financial information that is being requested by community members. All of these links are through the district website: https://www.isd761.org/

Once on the district website, go to District Services and then Business Services. From there, click on Financial Reports: https://www.isd761.org/district-services/business-services/financial-reports. This will lead you to further links to then review the 2025-26 Preliminary Budget, the 2024-25 Amended Budget, the 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report which includes data going back to 2015.

For each monthly Regular Meeting, you can find the agenda and the links to also review the Expenditure and Revenue Statements for each month: https://www.isd761.org/our-district/school-board/meeting-dates

The Public Accountability Report is provided by the Minnesota Department of Education (from what I have read this is what I believe, but could be corrected if someone knows otherwise) through the MN Report Card: https://rc.education.mn.gov/#fiscalTransparency/orgId–10761000000__groupType–district__year–2024__p–0

One observation that I made during my tours of each school as a new school board member 3 years ago is the increased number of staff in our schools. All I can compare to is when I was an elementary school student many years ago, and we didn’t have nearly as many staff. Our schools today have teachers, paras, education assistants, behavior interventionists, success coaches, teaching and learning coaches, achievement intervention teachers, interpreters, social workers, counselors, among others I may not even know about. I understand that our society is much different from when I was in school too. Considering differences in teaching, parenting, disciplining, nutrition intake, outdoor play, screen time and social media, kids’ activity involvement, and the wealth of information from around the world at our fingertips, it’s no wonder why our lives are so very different now. Schools are expected to provide more services than ever before including various screenings (vision, hearing, dyslexia), special services (speech therapy, advanced special education, etc), language translation and additional help with learning English, tutoring services, transportation services beyond usual bussing, specialty meals (gluten free, peanut free, to name just a few), nursing services to dispense medications to dozens of students each day, counseling and referrals for students’ mental health concerns, and the list goes on. Our state legislators have also mandated many changes for all MN schools, several which have no funding associated with them. I’m not saying that any of this is right or wrong, but it is where we find ourselves, our children, and our schools today.

If the levy does not pass, I’d be curious to know how our teachers and staff feel about the necessary reductions (or “cuts” or “right-sizing” or whatever PC way you want to say this). Would they prefer to maintain smaller class sizes, but not have as many of the helpers noted above or would it be better to have larger class sizes but then keep the helpers that I suspect would be needed with larger classes? As a school board member, this is not my decision to make. Our district administration will have some very difficult decisions ahead of them over the next several years should we come up short on funding.

It is worth noting that our district has not asked for an additional operating levy since 2013, but we all still remember the discussions and funding requests for the new high school. Owatonna has amazing school buildings with the ability and potential to help our kids discover and earn a future they may not have otherwise known existed. Our staff are working hard to learn and teach new reading curriculum. Next year, our younger students will start new math curriculum also, each of these have great potential to improve academic outcomes. We should also all know that the city is increasing our taxes and we don’t have a choice in the matter. The schools shouldn’t suffer simply because the district has to ask permission for increased funding.

To be honest and transparent with you all, I have had many of the same questions and concerns about school funding, questioning the true needs balanced with the disappointing academic outcomes. I still have questions and will continue to try to find answers. I simply ask that you do the same. Rather than listen to only strong opinions, ask questions, find answers, get the information you need to make a decision about the levy. I’m not asking you to vote for or against the levy, but to get the information you need to make a confident educated vote.

We also need to ask ourselves what we can do as parents and as a community and as a society. These are the hard questions such as: do my kids go outside to play, do they have creative play or it is all organized, do I use screen time as a babysitter, is there too much screen time, are my kids involved in too many activities, do we have family time/dinners/games/movies/etc, do I make eye contact with my children or is the day so busy that we don’t connect at all, do I take time to enjoy my children, do I need to discipline my children differently, do I give in to their whims and fights rather than deal with the hard conversations or consequences, how do I need to improve as a parent so that my children will be more kind/caring/respectful/disciplined/hard-working, etc…? Parenting is hard work, I have four children, and they are each very different! Like I’ve told each of them, “Just do your best and work hard, that’s all you can do.” Well, except for pray, but that’s a given daily occurrence in my house.

Reach out, check the above links and resources, ask questions, and take care.

Soli Deo Gloria!