MANKATO — As the new school year approaches, September will not only mean classes are in full swing, but it also will be when Mankato Area Public School’s financial plan for 2026 is laid out.
“We’re entering into an extremely important part of the budgeting process because as the state of Minnesota now releases preliminary levy data to schools, our responsibility is to set that preliminary number,” Supt. Paul Peterson said.
The preliminary tax levy isn’t likely to be the final levy. Instead, it’s a number the School Board will work with, and attempt to lower, before its final tax levy hearing and approval. At its meeting Monday, the board set the final hearing for Dec. 2 and the approval date as Dec. 15.
As for when the board will have that preliminary number and a place to start from, Peterson said it will be any day now.
“We really start working through the formulas that the Minnesota Department of Education will send us. We expect those to come to us any day.”
And this year, there’s another hiccup in the budgetary process: uncertainty surrounding federal funding.
“We saw about a 10% decrease in federal sources because we’re unsure what we’ll be getting next year,” Director of Business Services Amanda Heilman said at a previous School Board meeting. “That may change, but we wanted to play it safe for right now.”
As of the last public update, the district was expecting about $4 million from federal sources. Although Peterson notes federal funding is the third-largest source of funding for the district — behind local and state respectively — he said losing that money will have an impact.
“There are things happening with the U.S. Department of Education … that we want to make sure that, if there are going to be significant changes to public school funding, we know about those well ahead of time so we can make the mods that we’re going to have to make,” Peterson said. “It’s absolutely something that we’re watching.”
As of the board meeting in June, the district was expecting general fund expenditures to exceed revenue by about $1.1 million. Those numbers, Peterson said, are always changing. And even among all the federal uncertainty, the superintendent is confident the district will be able to get the best budget possible out in December.
“Our school budget is in really good shape right now, and that’s as a result of some tough decisions made in the past, but we are stable,” he said. “Our funding as a public entity comes from taxpayers, and so we need to continue to be good stewards of our taxpayers’ dollars.”