The Coeur d’Alene School board had their FY25 budget public hearing last night to go through the changes to balance the $6 million deficit and estimated lower enrollment numbers currently facing the district.
Months ago we found out that the CDA School district was going to start the FY25 year with a $6 million deficit due to lower enrollment, more special education students, higher nutrition costs, and the state going back to the pre-Covid funding formula of Average Daily Attendance instead of using enrollment numbers (during Covid no students were “attending” school in person so they switched to enrollment for funding).
After several workshops, on April 29th the board decided to use the Borah Elementary School as their Early Learning Development facility, the current Borah students will be dispersed amongst the other local schools, they will reduce their new curriculum budget by $500k, and they will not fill open positions.
Fast forward to last night’s meeting where the board got to hear about the rest of the FY25 budget, which includes the new state funding changes that came out of the 2024 legislative session. Overall, the district is working with the projections that the state will be funding almost $5 million less than last year, which primarily stems from consistently declining enrollment numbers (the district is anticipating 350 less students next year) and changes in the funding formulas.
One major revenue change to note comes from the passage of Idaho HB521, the School Modernization Facilities Fund, which redirects the state lottery fund to school capital projects to update their facilities. The problem, according to Finance Director Shannon Johnston, is the state lottery fund was already being used for routine maintenance repairs and maintenance wages, but the new law contradicts the tax-exempt bond laws which doesn’t allow it to be used for those routine items, capital projects only. The district will now have to pay for the everyday facility repairs and maintenance wages through the general fund, which gives their general fund another $1 million hit.
Expenditures are also seeing a decrease over the next year; the breakdown of expenditures by object and by function are helpful to understand where the money is going.
After the presentation was over there was one public comment by Ron Hartman and then the budget hearing was completed. The school board will be looking over the entire FY25 financials, found here, before making a decision at the June 24th FY25 Budget Adoption and Board of Trustees Workshop.
Full video of last night’s meeting is found below. Full agenda is here.
Well , I think a lot of tax payers are getting REALLY Tired of getting on the “ levy go round “, and hearing of district financial problems time and time again . Couple that with the ever increasing cost of living in this country , I think most people will find it a difficult choice to vote yes on the next levy . Other districts in this area seem to not have the same financial struggles as this district does , you’d have to really ask “ why ? “ . We all have to figure out how to live on a budget. What has really changed over the past 25 or so years ? I don’t remember going…
Consider a forensic accounting of expenditures over the past 5 years. Rumor has it 271 spends millions on education, travel expenses including hotels and airfare for staff, lunches for staff and a stipend towards the superintendents mortgage and a half million for mandatory dei training. I would like to believe this isn't true. Open the books and examine where the money is going. 26 million bond was approved last year. It seems like if you have less students the money would be increased per student.
Like every family has been forced to do, there needs to be cut backs to balance the budget. It is painful but the truth.
We have a right to know where the money is spent…