MANKATO — It’s a shortened agenda, but what’s on it is hefty. On Monday, the Mankato Area Public School Board will meet with just one item on their action agenda: the 2026-2027 School Year Preliminary Property Tax Certification.
This certification, handed down from the Minnesota Department of Education, will give the board their preliminary levy for next school year. Over the rest of 2025, the board will work to bring the levy down as much as they can from the preliminary number.
The board has already had some initial conversations surrounding next year’s budget, and there are some notable concerns. Chief among them are a possible 10% decrease in federal funding and a general fund expenditure number that outpaces revenue by $1.1 million.
Mankato Supt. Paul Peterson has previously said that, at this time of the year, budgets are constantly changing. He has faith that the board will work out any issues over the course of this process.
“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,” Peterson said in a previous interview with the The Free Press. “Our funding as a public entity comes from taxpayers, and so we need to continue to be good stewards of our taxpayers’ dollars.”
Besides a brief update on personnel changes across the district, this item is the only thing of note taking place at Monday’s meeting. While most School Board meetings are scheduled to go an hour or longer, Peterson and the board hope to have all these items and discussions wrapped up in 15 minutes.
The meeting will take place 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Intergovernmental Center in the Mankato Room.