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BLUE EARTH -- The Blue Earth Area School Board this week passed a balanced budget for fiscal year 2021.
"The board enacted staffing changes earlier this spring to right-size the district and it led to an original budget reduction of $948,000," said fiscal services coordinator Alan Wilhelmi. "Since then, the board approved the hiring of two new teachers, so the net reduction is $845,000."
Reductions also were made in operating capital expenses and long-term facilities maintenance expenses, resulting in an additional reduction of $275,000 when compared against the same categories as last year, according to Wilhelmi.
"We are also projecting gains of $315,000 on the revenue side," he said. "So the sum of these budget projections yields a net budget increase for the general fund of $713,180 for the upcoming fiscal year," he said. "This would increase the district's projected general fund balance to $2.72 million as of June 30, 2021."
Turning to other business, Superintendent Mandy Fletcher talked about possible options for the upcoming school year, given the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The first option is for the students to be in school following the guidelines outlined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Minnesota Department of Health," she said. "This would be as close to normal as we could expect at this time."
Fletcher said option two would involve a hybrid option in which kids would be in school some days and distance learn on other days.
"Option three would be total distance learning with no students returning to the school buildings," Fletcher said. "We are planning for all three scenarios and should know by the end of July which way we will go."
In other action, the board:
o Approved the contracts of Kelly Bleess as a special education teacher and Jennifer Berkner as the director of technology.
o Accepted the resignation of Gwen Armon as district secretary.