(KNSI) — The St. Cloud Area School District will have a little more money in its budget thanks to more revenue from the state.
When District 742’s business manager, Amy Skaalerud, stood before the school board at their latest work session, she had welcome news to share. The district’s preliminary budget for 2025-2026 shows $157.4 million in expected revenue, a modest but meaningful 2% bump from the previous year. “We see, finally, in this budget, going back to what I call a normal distribution of revenues. So this budget reflects revenues from the state of about $133 million, which is about 85% of our total revenue, which really is where it has historically been.”
Skaalerud explained the shift back to state-heavy funding is significant for school districts that operate under constraints most government entities don’t face. “We’re not like a city and a county who can say, ‘Oh, we have a $500,000 shortfall. We’re going to increase our tax rate to generate that revenue.’ We don’t tax that way as a school district. We don’t have that luxury. We are very much at the mercy of what we get from the state for balancing our budget.”
Local property taxes will still play their part, covering $10.2 million-about 6.5% of the total budget. Homeowners should expect a slight uptick in their school taxes next year due to the voter-passed referendum this spring. The district plans to dip into its unrestricted fund balance for some one-time expenses, such as $200,000 for city assessments and $125,000 to cover a special election needed to fill an empty board seat this fall.
The district also predicts an increase of about 15 students, bringing the population to 9,315, by the 2027-2028 school year. The student population is the biggest driving force for revenue. The budget will be finalized at the June 18th meeting.
Read the preliminary budget by clicking here.
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