BEMIDJI — The Bemidji School Board unanimously approved more than $1.3 million in budget cuts as a $2 million projected deficit looms ahead.
In its April 28 meeting, the board’s votes on two resolutions came after several students and staff gave passionate testimony to preserve class sizes, education quality and more.
Shirley Lipscy is a library media specialist for students in two schools across five grade levels in the district. She shared her position is one that will be eliminated and advocated on the schools’ needs to connect kids with reading.
"At Gene Dillon Elementary, our reading proficiency is currently 52%. At Bemidji Middle School our reading proficiency is currently 49%. Not good," Lipscy said. "The proposal is to cut the library program even more.”
Around $1.67 million in cuts were targeted, with Superintendent Jeremy Olson explaining that even with one-time COVID relief dollars, the district has been in troubled fiscal waters since 2019.
"Since 2019, the average revenue [increase] has been 2.36%. Since 2019, the average expense increase to the district has been 3.23%; that's a problem," Olson said. "This is why we are looking at making reductions."
The board’s decisions include cutting nine positions, but nixing one proposal to merge classrooms at Solway Elementary. School Board Member Jack Aakhus personally donated $3,500 ahead of the meeting to support the debate team for another year — another program the district was looking at cutting.
In addition to the $1.3 million in licensed staff reductions needing board approval, the administration implemented around $338,000 in non-licensed staffing reductions.
School Board members commented on the difficulty of the decisions, with Ann Long Voelkner warning cuts may have to be revisited again into the future, due to a lack of local support of levies and potential federal funding cuts, on top of issues with the state’s education formula.
"Our state funding, we heard earlier that we are not keeping up with inflation and that difference was 18.7%," Long Voelkner said. "If we could only keep up with inflation over these years, we would not be sitting here again today."
Program reductions approved Monday include: one full-time-equivalent teacher in each of the subjects of English, math, social studies and special education at Bemidji High School; the dean of students/activities director at Bemidji Middle School and one English and one social studies teacher there; three teachers at Bemidji's elementary schools and one elementary principal position; as well as the 1.64 FTE reduction in the districts' library media specialists.
In 2022, the district voted to shift to a five-period day at Bemidji High School to save on staffing hours, first implemented in the 23-24 school year, after shuttering Central Elementary School to cut costs the year prior.
