The Mount Vernon School Board approved roughly $640,000 in budget cuts for the upcoming fiscal year at its March 27 meeting. The cuts are intended to bring down the district’s unspent balance and start improving the district’s solvency ratio.
The board elected to join a risk pool for fuel costs and move fuel costs to the management fund, reducing $100,000 in general fund expenditures. At the school board meeting on April 8, the management committee and superintendent Greg Batenhorst approved additional cuts to consensus items, including:
• Potential savings from ending cash stipends for insurance, reducing the contributions to IPERS/FICA by $200,000
• Moving three teaching associates to the special education deficit, amounting to $105,000
• Not replacing a retiring transportation director, saving $60,000
• Eliminating staff overtime pay, saving $45,000
• Utilizing high school teachers to fill an open middle school health teacher position, saving $50,000
• Eliminating the post-COVID substitute teaching incentive, saving $10,000
• Reducing building and office budgets by $35,000
• Eliminating some coaching stipends from the general fund, saving $10,000
• Eliminating 25 professional leadership coach stipends, saving $25,000
There was no consensus on reducing professional development dollars for the upcoming school year. Batenhorst recommended reducing that amount because it is one of the funds that could be shifted to the general fund.
The district has $60,000 left to spend in its fund for the remainder of this school year, and will receive an additional $80,000 next year. Batenhorst’s recommendation was to use some of that excess for teacher salary support or supplemental support accounts for the district.
The management committee did not approve the recommendation without knowing the future impact of the state-funded teacher pay increase in Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ newly passed law. Only certified staff would be eligible to receive additional pay utilizing the teacher supplemental support fund, and the backfill for employees would need to address both certified staff and support staff.
Board member Jeremy Kunz provided the sole vote against the budget cuts as presented. Kunz said he only saw the cuts as saving $360,000 for the district because the $200,000 from IPERS/FICA, $45,000 from the reduction of overtime pay, and $25,000 from eliminating professional leadership coach stipends would not be immediately realized savings.
Discussion on cuts
During the discussion, several school board members raised concerns with items they have for budgets.
Kunz said he was concerned about reducing the pay for professional leadership coaches, as those employees already had seen their salaries reduced by half in the previous school year and would see an additional reduction down to nothing over that same time frame.
“Combined with the loss of the insurance cash stipends, these employees will have seen their salaries reduced by $9,000 over the span of three years,” Kunz said.
Batenhorst said without those positions being paid, staff would not be required to act as coaches any further because the district cannot mandate additional unpaid job requirements.
Questions were also proposed regarding the reduction of the substitute teaching incentive.
Batenhorst said the district currently has a consistent substitute fill rate and has done much better in 2024-25 compared to the first years after COVID-19.
“There are plenty of substitutes available, they just have plenty of choices in which jobs they want to take,” Batenhorst said.
Board member Suzette Kragenbrink questioned what overtime work would be impacted by the decision.
Batenhorst said some custodial items might be left uncompleted, and some state reporting that requires additional hours would need to be reallocated.
“The tricky part is when it comes to snow removal,” Batenhorst said. “That can easily add more hours to staffing.”
Kunz also said he disagreed that the $200,000 reduction to cash stipends would amount to a total saving for the district, noting the increased cost for insurance if enough employees join the districts’ plans.
Batenhorst said as of Monday, April 8, a total of 41 Mount Vernon Community School District employees had completed insurance enrollment in the open enrollment period. While 14 people had waived all coverage, 21 signed up for insurance, with six who signed up for partial use of the $692 per month offered by the district for items like vision or dental insurance. A total of 120 other employees had yet to enroll, but have until April 15 to do so.
Kragenbrink agreed that the reduction to the cash stipend was not an option for savings, but done to reduce the fines the district incurs and encourage more employees to sign up for the district’s health insurance.
Business Manager Michael Marshall said the reduction of the cash stipends was saving money for the district and will continue past this year on those funds moving forward.
“The added insurance expenses are a different and yet unknown factor,” Marshall said.
Additional discussion was held on the coaching stipends to be reduced from the general fund.
Activities Director and Mount Vernon High School Assistant Principal Matt Thede said he doesn’t see the Booster Club supporting coaching roles as positions to solely rely on.
“They are there to boost our programs and activities,” Thede said.
He said there will need to be some discussions about potentially looking at fundraising at the middle school level to help some of those programs move forward.
Board member Lance Schoff said he disliked the idea of fundraising at the middle school level because of how it may impact the experience of kids in the district.
Board member Tim Keegan moved and Schoff seconded to move forward with the budget cuts presented.
Next steps
The board asked the administrative team to determine if there is an additional $60,000 in cuts that can be made without staff reductions, for a total of $700,000 in reductions for next year’s unspent balance trends. The board also asked the district to further a deep dive into expenditures during the next fiscal year to help improve its solvency ratio and unspent balances.
The district will also make a decision at its upcoming meeting on April 17 to determine how to handle backfilling salaries of those impacted by reductions to cash stipends and to review any additional staff reductions that could be necessary to increase savings.
Kunz said he still views any decision on reducing the cash insurance stipends without backfilling for employees as one that saves the district’s finances at the expense of its employees.
“The district’s budgetary problem is not because of the insurance stipend we were offering,” Kunz said. “They have done their part for the district.”
Board member Jason Clark also agreed that backfilling employees from the cash stipend still needed to be discussed.
Batenhorst said incoming superintendent Matt Leeman sees the board’s discussions as just the beginning of tackling its budget issues.
“You can trust your new leader to do a deep dive with this, he’s been involved in those decisions in the past,” Batenhorst said.
Clark also said he knows this has been a strain on the school board, administration, and staff, and he is hopeful that the district will do what they can so this doesn’t impact students in the district.
Mount Vernon High School Principal Steve Brand said the ongoing goal of these discussions is to allow employees and administrators in the district to share the financial burden so it all of it does not fall on a certain group of people.