Mount Vernon’s school board has a new vice president and has retained its serving president for a second four-year term.
The board at its meeting November 14 voted unanimously to retain Nannette Gunn as president for a second term and to install school board member Rick Elliott to a four-year term as the new vice president.
Previous school board vice president Jeremy Kunz did not run for a second term.
“Everyone’s willing to serve and do things,” said Superintendent Greg Batenhorst. ”That’s the culture of the district and the community.”
School district enrollmentCertified student enrollment in Mount Vernon’s grades 1-12 remains fairly steady, Batenhorst reported.
As of last Monday, the district had 1,428 students, which is a slight decrease from the previous year.
The district’s birth rate remains flat, Batenhorst said. The district is experiencing a slight drop in residential students but is gaining out-of-district students.
In addition, there is a trend for students to open enroll out of districts to home school or online programs, though not through other districts, he said.
District finances Mount Vernon’s school district is in good financial shape, school board treasurer Michael Marshall reported at the school board meeting.
The district’s goal is for its solvency ratio (how much available cash it has on hand—a key indicator of how the district is doing), to be above 10 percent, Marshall said.
For the past fiscal year (July 1, 2021-June 30, 2022), the district’s unspent balance—out of what was authorized to be spent—was about 12 percent, which is above the recommended 10 percent for school districts.
During the year, salaries and benefits took up about 80 percent of the budget. The district wants to keep them about there to stay competitive in the state, Marshall said.
This past year, the district spent a bit more than during either the past year or the previous year. All the budget categories went up about the same amount during the year.
In addition, all the district’s funds began and ended the fiscal year in positive territory. All but two funds—the General Fund and the Internet Service Funds—ended the year with larger balances than they began with.
The Internet Service Funds began the fiscal year with about $52,000 and ended with just under $41,000.
The General Fund began the fiscal year with $2.71 million, added about $16.1 million and spent about $16.6 million. It ended the year with about $2.18 million.