PRESCOTT – During public comment at the June Prescott School Board meeting, Tracy Collins from New Adventures Daycare represented three day care centers in the area that would be negatively effected by the loss of city busing. She stated that these daycares would face financial difficulties due to potentially losing children attending before and after school programs who were bussed from the school. She requested that the board consider continuing to offer bus service to these centers.

On to business, the board approved a one-year extension of the Health Partners contract with a 12% cap on premium increases. The extension would provide continuity for employees and families and give the district time to figure out health care costs for 2025-26. Board President Mike Matzek inquired if anything would change such as premiums or deductibles and he was assured there would be no changes at this time.

“One of the things that as we kind of navigate the future finances of our district that are somewhat unknown,” said Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza. “We thought it would be wise to make sure that we put in a cap. We did come back with a 12% cap. If you kind of think about it over two years, that is the worst-case scenario. What I can tell you is every time we've worked with Health Partners with a cap, they've always renewed at the lower end of that cap, but in a worst-case scenario given that this would extend into the 25-26 school year, it would be like a 6% increase over two years.”

The board accepted two hires, an elementary cross categorical special education teacher Cassandra Webb and a seventh grade teacher Sarah Gillis. Spicuzza announced the resignations of special education aide Tanya Moravec, high school English teacher Tanya Sponholz, general education aide Kim Reich and Activities and Athletic Director Andrew Caudill.

“It was important for Mr. Caudill to be pulled from the consent agenda and recognized both for information but also recognize some of the great work that's been done,” Matzek said. “Thank you for that. Thank you to the other folks who certainly put a lot of work into the district and welcome to the new hires that we have.”

Several other board members also expressed gratitude for Caudill’s contributions in athletics, fundraising, structuring and the success of the program. The board will discuss how to fill this position and if it will look the same.

Food Service Manager Nicole Lenzner presented the year end food service report, but first Spicuzza prefaced this by saying, “As you know, one of the challenges that we had is with regards to Fund 50, which is food service, is that we currently have projected that we would lose over $100,000. We were able to make some midcourse corrections, some staffing adjustments. We do know that there will be a deficit in our Fund 50 this year. We will be running out of money a year from now. But I can tell you that revenues went up for the second year and expenses dropped for the second year. So, we are in the right trajectories. We just got to get to a point where they can break even or make money.”

Lenzner dived right in and addressed this issue.

“Like Rick said, we need to find the balance. We're not quite there,” Lenzner said. “Yes, we're making more money. Expenses are coming down but we're talking pennies to the dollar. Some things went that went up $2, now it's down to six. Ideally, our goal is to find that sweet spot. I'm really hoping that that 25 cent increase is it and then we can hold that for years to come. And then with that we're also targeting free and reduced meals heavily this year. So, when we start school, we're going to give a packet to everybody. So, fill it out. I don't care if you make a million dollars, I will literally put in an application for every kid.”

Lenzner was happy to announce the online meal service has been changed to Infinite Campus which the district already uses. Inconsistencies arose from using two different databases. This will streamline payments so that families can pay for meals and other fees at the same site.

Spicuzza presented the projected budget and encouraged the board to come together soon to decide whether to go ahead with another operating referendum for the fall election. Details of what programs/staff will be maintained or brought back all need to be workshopped. The decision to go forward with a referendum needs to be made soon to meet the deadline. Spicuzza elaborated on the way funding comes to the district and the budget shortfall.

“The money is split between local taxpayers and also the state. We currently receive more money from the state than we do from local taxpayers. That is always capped at what we can truly receive. When you hear about whether or not our equalization aid is going up or down, it just means whether or not there's going to be more on the backs of our local taxpayers or less on the backs of our local taxpayers. At the beginning of the year, we believed that we would have the opportunity to look at keeping programs, keeping staff and running everything forward. But we knew that we would have an unbalanced budget, that the amount of revenue coming in versus the expenses to keep all of the programs that we had. Keep the class sizes, keep bussing where they were transportation within two miles and things that we are not required to do. But we do and unfortunately when we asked our community to support that, it was not supported. And therefore, you have an unbalanced budget. That was projected to spend $950,000 more than it was receiving since April 2. And even before we knew that prior to that election that we would be carving about $650,000 from the current budget going into next year, even though we were asking the community to support the remainder for the types of programs, the performance and the personnel. So it was projected that our fund balance would be at $4.9 million.”