News from our neighbors: nothing good, and the pain is everywhere

A number of area school districts are in deep financial trouble, starting with Benson Public Schools.

Their district, which has a K-12 enrollment of around 900, needs to cut a whopping $650,000 to balance their budget for 2013-14. Three entire academic programs are facing the budget ax: French, Art and Home Ec. (Family and Consumer Science or FACS).

In the Mar. 27 issue of the Swift County Monitor-News, Benson Superintendent Lee Westrum commented, "We are losing complete programs, and we haven't had to do that before. There is significant pain and it is not anything that you would want to do."

Hold on, it gets worse: Benson needs to go to the voters in the fall of 2013 to raise their per-pupil local property tax levy from $670 per student to $1,000 per student in order to stave off even deeper cuts. They are also asking their teachers union to agree to a hard salary freeze for a two-year period.

The newspaper article states that while projected enrollment for 2013-14 in Benson improves by four students, they face huge drops after that: down 15 in 2014-15, down 21 in 2015-16, down 19 in 2016-17 and down 32 in 2017-18. Altogether, over the next five years, Benson is projected to lose $581,000 in state funding due to the loss of 83 students on their enrollment.

Benson's kindergarten class actually increases from 57 in 2012-13 up to 68 in 2013-14 (+11), but the numbers drop after that. Within five years, Benson's kindergarten class is projected to have only 46 kids.

For the past three years, Benson has enacted "deficit spending" where they've used reserve funds in order to cash flow. They had an unassigned reserve fund of just under $2 million in 2009-10, but that number drops to $883,896 this summer. They want to keep a fund balance of $1.3 million in order to stay within proper budget guidelines given by auditors.

Without assigning budget cuts, the projected 2013-14 budget at Benson will spend $562,200 more than their projected revenue.

Here's an example of how the cuts really hit home: Benson's current 5th grade class (Class of 2020) is split into three sections for their 65 students. The cuts would shift 6th grade to two sections from three, meaning their 6th grade classes next year would have 33 and 32 students.

Long Prairie-Grey Eagle needs to make cuts of at least $250,000 - and they voted last week to enact $17,000 or so in athletic department cuts. Their boys' and girls' golf programs have been axed effective for 2013-14.

Swanville needs to cut $170,000 to $200,000 from their budget.

Just up the road, Sauk Centre is facing $300,000 in budget cuts this spring.

New London-Spicer is considering at least $200,000 in cuts.

I'll report more figures at other districts as I learn them.

Knock on wood, say a few Hallelujahs and thank the Lord that B-B-E is not in significant budget trouble. I tip my hat to every last person working in the school along with any parent or child who has anything to do with our school: it is not easy to keep a school budget in order. Superintendent Bullard reported that B-B-E will not cut any programming this spring. (Read the local papers to learn more on that terrific news.)