ST PAUL, Minn. — St. Paul Public Schools is moving forward with a record-breaking budget that for the first time, exceeds $1 billion. In fact, Superintendent Joe Gothard says it's a first for any district in Minnesota.
The Board of Education passed the $1,020,835,728 budget for the 2024 fiscal year in a 6-1 vote Tuesday night.
The district will balance the budget with $34.4 million in reserve funds while remaining above the required 5% fund balance, according to a press release.
Gothard says it's due in part to the Minnesota Legislature last month passing a sweeping education bill that increases state aid to schools by 4% next year and 2% the year after that. It also allocates millions of dollars to special education services and hiring more support staff.
"This is my 10th year as a superintendent in Minnesota and I remember my first legislative session. I kept hearing about inflation tied to the student-per-pupil formula," Gothard said. "To know that those three areas were addressed with an increase in the per-pupil formula as well, I can't say thank you enough."
The state aid is tied to student enrollment and Gothard says numbers are holding steady, with increased enrollment this past spring compared to last fall.
"I don't know if in my six years here we've been able to say that," he said.
Another reason their budget's so big is due to remaining federal COVID relief funds, which must be spent by the end of December 2024.
"Our federal funds, the last installment of the American Rescue Plan or ESSER III, came at a time in 2021 where I was told SPPS was to receive $207 million, and that came at a time where we had no idea what our future was going to look like [as] we were still in the throws of the pandemic," Gothard said. "Never did I think we'd be able to invest this to help jump-start our strategic plan."
That plan involved hiring 70 teachers using a reading curriculum called What I Need Now from the University of Florida.
"To have students who were shy or embarrassed or pushed away or not engaged in their learning be able to confidently show up day in day out know that they're improving … it has been one of the greatest strategies that we have led here in St. Paul Public Schools."
With the COVID relief funds set to expire by the end of 2024, it begs the question: What would the following year's budget look like? Gothard says school leaders will come up with a prioritization process, looking at investments making the biggest differences in kids' lives and then deciding what can continue to be funded and what will be sunsetted.
The next regular board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 18, at 5:30 p.m.
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