Greetings Raider Families,

We are excited the school board will be taking up additional projects that can be paid for with the remaining Bond dollars. As we complete projects, if they come in under budget, those funds can be allocated for other Bond types of projects and cannot be used for operational or general budget costs. Our projects have done so well that we have approximately $1.4M to allocate back into our buildings to support students. This is such great news and another example of how the district is returning more improvements for our students than originally promised from the 2017 Bond.

At our last school board meeting, we discussed our budgeting process for the 2023-2024 school year, and highlighted some of the assumptions we would usually make at this time of year. Unfortunately, things are more uncertain this year than usual.

We know a lot about our budget. We are a people-based organization - most of our expenses are salaries and benefits, and if we just look at maintaining our staff, we have a good idea what our expenses will be year-after-year. But a number of factors need to be considered before we can finalize our budget. These include enrollment (on which state revenue is based), projected increase in that revenue from the state, revenue for other programs (special education, compensatory aid, etc.), and cost variables, such as inflationary increases to insurance, utilities and transportation.

This year, public school districts in Minnesota are staring into the face of huge budgetary unknowns due to significant and monumental legislation currently under consideration by the Minnesota Legislature. Legislative leaders are already touting a "historic" investment in k-12 education, but the session isn’t done and there are many proposals to increase public education expenses.

As we’ve been communicating the last few years, we’re having to make adjustments to the Hastings School District budget as enrollment declines, expenses increase, and revenues from the state don’t keep pace with inflation. While we’ve been making budget cuts recently, we’re going to cover any shortfalls this coming year with fund balance (the district’s savings account). But because one of our operating levies expires this year we’re looking at long-term solutions. Preliminary budgeting suggests legislative outcomes are not likely to solve our budget challenges. We're excited about the possibility of game-changing revenue increases, but the proposed increases are still below the rate of inflation for last year - a pattern that has been occurring for the last two decades. And, we're concerned that proposed mandates from the legislature could wipe out some of those increases. We won't know the true impact until the session is over in late May. We will be sure to let you know!

With eight weeks of school left for this year, I will start sending reminders about required immunizations and sports physicals. Please remember these are two different things. Students who will be entering preschool, kindergarten, seventh grade, and twelfth grade have immunization requirements. And sports physicals are needed every three years. The MN Department of Health Immunization forms as well as exemption information, can be found here.

Bob McDowell, Ed.D.

Superintendent