FAIRMONT — The Fairmont School Board pored over the numbers at its Tuesday meeting, looking at the revised 2025-26 budget numbers and the preliminary 2026-27 numbers.

Business Manager Jessica Korte said state statute requires the district set a budget by July 1 every year. With how everything works, she said it can get complicated.

“We’re still working on next year’s expenditures and plans, and students coming in,” she said. “Typically we set the budget, and then we’ll revise it.”

A big piece to note, according to Korte, was student enrollment, which she said includes kids enrolled through the Southern Plains Education Cooperative. Right now, Korte said they are projecting another decrease in enrollment, from 1,718 in 2025-26 to 1,682 in 2026-27. This is nearly 100 students down from the 1,777 students in the district in 2024-25.

From last year to this year, there was a 2.69 percent increase in the state funding formula, which provides around 80 percent of the school’s revenue according to the preliminary 2026-27 budget. This means the formula allowance per kid is up from $7,481 last year to $7,683 this year. Even with the projected decrease in the student population, the state basic aid formula will still provide the school $17.8 million.

Overall the 2026-27 preliminary budget is set at $27,076,966. This is around $200,000 less than the 2025-26 revised budget, with projected minor decreases to local levy, state and federal funds.

The local levy amount went up by a little over $100,000 from 2024-25 to 2025-26. It’s currently projected to go back down to near the 2024-25 level for 2026-27, but Korte said they will know more in a few months.

“We have to project our enrollment by September, so when we set that amount in the levy, that’s what we’re looking at,” she said. “The state will make adjustments, so when we look at our levy this fall, we’ll see adjustments based on the last couple of years.”

With the switch to Taher, Korte said they have seen a lot more students eating school lunches, and a lot more revenue coming into the food service fund as a result. Currently, the 2026-27 preliminary budget projects around $232,666 in pupil sales and miscellaneous funding, up from the previous budget of $115,000.

Looking over everything, Superintendent Andy Traetow thanked Korte for her due diligence on these budgets, and said they are looking to do even more for the school board moving forward.

“One of the things we’ve talked about moving forward is to increase your awareness of how we’re trending throughout each fiscal year,” Traetow said. “She’s been working in the last few weeks on some different ways we can include information in the board packets. As we get closer to the school year and wrap up this past fiscal year’s audit and all those things, you can look for additional information to be included to see how we’re trending throughout the year with our enrollment as it relates to expected revenues and expenditures.”

Both the revised 2025-26 budget and preliminary 2026-27 budget were approved unanimously.

In other news:

— The next year of the Long-Term Facilities Maintenance Plan was approved. Traetow said it is nice to be able to budget and plan for projects like roofing projects, which have high expected costs, over several years to make sure funds are available when they are needed.

— Activity participation fees and admission prices for the 2026-27 school year were passed with no changes. Board Member Dan Brookens said the prices have stayed the same for almost a decade now, which he wished could be the same for the rest of the world.

— A public hearing for a five-year tax abatement request from Cress Refrigeration, which plans to build a new building, was added to the July 15 school board meeting. The abatement has been approved by the city council but still has to be approved by the school board and the county at their respective hearings. The school board hearing will start at 5:15 p.m.

— Jill Monahan, Michael Hobbs, Madison Sinn, Heather Willemssen and Lydia Ploog’s hiring were approved as a district long-term substitute, high school math teacher, elementary long-term substitute, elementary long-term substitute and fourth grade teacher respectively.