By Jolene Farley
In a time of budget cuts and uncertain state funding, the Hills-Beaver Creek school district carries a healthy general fund balance of more than $700,000 in reserved and unreserved funds, according to Superintendent Dave Deragisch.
Reserved balances are earmarked for those expenditures the district knows it will have to pay for in the future, for example, severance packages. Unreserved balances are not earmarked for anything specific.
The H-BC district has a budget of almost $2.9 million. The school is operating at 58-percent expenditures for the year with the school year two-thirds of the way over, according to business manager Glenda Kuehl.
"We do have a surplus," said Deragisch. "That is a plus for us."
Hills-Beaver Creek is a very effective single-section school, according to Deragisch. Single section means one section per grade.
"We are not bare-boned, but we don't have a lot of fat," he said at MondayÕs School Board meeting. "I think we have a lot of good things happening."
"When I left the district in 1991, I think the school really was on the verge of big financial trouble," he said by phone Tuesday. "I think they had to make some tough cuts and evaluate every position in the district to see if it was needed or not."
Enrollment in the district is expected to remain steady, according to projections. Resident student count for the 2001Ð02 school year is 419 students, with 302 students currently attending Hills-Beaver Creek schools, 77 students open enrolled to other districts, 16 students home schooled, and the rest of the students attending Hills Christian School. Projected enrollment for the 2002Ð03 school year is 298 students.
The number of students open enrolled out of the district is a concern for the School Board, but if all open-enrolled students attended H-BC more staff would be needed to handle the extra students.
"If you looked at the actual number of students who enrolled out," said Deragisch, "it would probably be less effective than the number we have now. We run a pretty effective school."
No one really knows what will happen to school funding in the future, according to Deragisch. "Anytime you try to predict the future it makes one nervous," he said. "When the governor starts toying with our per-pupil aid it makes me very nervous."
Deragisch said he would like to see the Minnesota State Legislature work on the 2003Ð04 school budget; instead they are currently finishing up the 2002Ð03 budget.
"When you don't know what you are going to get in dollars it's hard to make plans," he said. "If the funding comes through like we are hoping we will be in OK shape."