ELY- The Ely School Board pruned $225,089 from its proposed 2024-25 budget and added $37,200 in new revenue sources at a special meeting on Monday. The financial belt tightening is part of a two-year effort to plug a half million-dollar shortfall for the upcoming school year. The board approved the proposed cuts and revenue increases 5-0, with board member Rochelle Sjoberg absent.
“This is just the beginning of an ongoing process for the next year to two years,” said Superintendent Anne Oelke. “This is only half of a finished product.”
The school board will spread the effect of the shortfall over two years to minimize the impact to the district’s students.
Oelke unveiled the shortfall at the school board’s March study session, near the end of negotiating next year’s teacher and staff contracts. The shortfall was created by increases in wages and benefits and a loss of revenues, especially from the termination of COVID-19 funds, as reported in the March 29 edition of the Timberjay.
The ISD 696 finance committee created the list of proposed spending cuts and revenue increases based on recommendations made by the administration, faculty, and staff.
Proposed cuts
The school board approved the following spending reductions:
• $19,968—Reducing school nurse hours from 8 to 5 per day. This returns the school nurse hours to what they were before COVID-19. This reduction was approved by the district’s health coordinator.
• $2,694—Reducing one cafeteria aide from 3.75 to 2.75 hours per day. All the other aides are already at 2.75 hours.
• $1,958—Reducing secretary workdays in the summer. Both school secretaries felt comfortable with the proposed reduction.
• $15,479—Eliminate the high school/middle school principal and add an assistant principal working 200 days. The current administration has one full-time superintendent/elementary principal and one high full-time school/middle school principal. The new administrative structure will be one full-time superintendent/K-12 principal and one assistant K-12 principal.
• $85,189—Cutting three paraprofessional positions, for a reduction from 26 to 23 paraprofessionals, which is justified by declining enrollment.
• $18,018—Reducing paraprofessional hours from 32.5/week to 31.5/week
• $29,905—Reducing the English department from 3.0 full-time positions to 2.8 full-time positions. This is possible due to a current teacher leave of absence and eliminating one low-enrollment elective.
• $9,000—Eliminating the contracted business manager position and consolidating the business and payroll managers into one position.
• $31,887—Reducing salary for social science teacher positions achieved through retirement.
• $6,500—Reducing summer help from three to two student employees.
• $1,000—Eliminating the student cafeteria employee during the school year.
• $3,500—Replacing the current student security software package.
New revenues
The school board approved the following new revenue increases:
• $25,000—Donation from the Ely Educational Foundation Course Diversity Fund to support fine arts elective.
• $4,800—Increasing participation fees by $15. These have not been increased for approximately 20 years.
• $1,200—Moving volleyball to a tier one sport.
• $5,000—Increasing gate fees by $1. Gate fees have not been increased “for years.”
• $1,200—Increasing the price of athletic passes from $180 to $200 for a family pass, $90 to $100 for an individual pass, and $54 to $70 for a student pass.

2024-25 deficits
Even with the cuts and added revenue, the district will still be in the red for the 2025 fiscal year. “We’ll have to decide how much we’re going to deficit spend,” Oelke said, referring to the district’s finance committee, “and that will be in the budget proposal for June.” Any deficit will come out of the unassigned general fund.
The finance committee is not yet in a position to finalize how much the district will be in the red next year. The committee must wait for any changes the Legislature may make to operating and capital project levies and education funding formulas for 2024-25.
“We’ll be exploring capital project levies,” Oelke explained, contingent on legislative changes. The district currently doesn’t have one but would consider adding one “if it makes sense for our school and for our taxpayers as well,” Oelke added.
Oelke remarked that finding new ways to save money and increase revenues will continue. “This is going to be a two-year process. We still have a lot to do. We might be looking at more cuts, or we might increase (enough) revenue that we don’t have to do as many cuts.”
Ely School Board Chair Ray Marsnik reminded the board and attendees at the meeting about Minnesota’s statutory limits on any district’s deficit spending. He explained that a deficit in the general fund “cannot exceed more than two and a half percent of your revenue,” otherwise the district could be subject to fiscal enforcement actions by the state.
“We’ve talked about this before,” Marsnik cautioned, “and it’s something that we definitely have to keep our eye on …. But we’ve had a healthy general fund, and this is why we can afford to do this (for 2024-25).”