During Monday night’s USD 489 board of education work session Interim Superintendant Dean Katt told the board some unfortunate news on the budget.

The number of students enrolled is not what was anticipated when the budget was originally published.

“We are going to use a 3 year average this year which is 2,810.2 as the adjusted enrollment and when you add the 4 year old at risk students, the total is 2,820.
Looking at what was published this year, when the budget was developed, the estimate was 2920 students. The September 20, count was 2830. We are looking at 90 fewer students than what was published,” Katt explained to the board.

The numbers are not official until an audit by the State Department of Education, Katt is asking them for an audit as soon as possible.

“The budget was developed on this higher number of students, said Katt. “I don’t want to make it sound like we are going to have to cut $735,000. I’m sure when the budget was developed and Richard Cain (just retired school district finance director) will be in later this week to go over this, I’m guessing that they probably used about half of what they over projected,” he said.

“It is an obvious issue we are going to have to face. After we go through the budget with Richard and find out what the actual numbers were and where some of the money may have been put in the working budget and what we are going to have to cut. After we get that, we will come back with options and some different things we are going to have to look at,” Katt explained.

“Honestly, I haven’t had to deal with that, what I call a self inflicted wound,” Katt said. “Usually it is state cuts and those things, this is a little bit different for me to deal with but we will get through it, come up with a plan and go from there.”  The board is scheduled to meet again on Monday, October 28.