Newsletters 2013-14 Focus newsletter, [1] fall | Page 9

A N O K A

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H E N N E P I N

S C H O O L

District budget continues
strategic investments

T

he Anoka-Hennepin School Board
approved a budget for the new school
year that maintains current class
sizes and programs and continues the fouryear strategic investment program (see page
4) begun last year in an effort to expand
learning opportunities and do a better job of
preparing students for life.
Board member Scott Wenzel emphasized
that it maintains the Board’s commitment to
“having a budget that is sustainable for our
taxpayers and communities. Board member
Jeff Simon characterized it as fiscally responsible and said he was pleased it would not
result in a tax increase. The Board’s newest
member, Bill Harvey, said he was proud to
see that every department, without exception,
is fiscally responsible. “Everybody is carefully
scrutinizing every dollar, every penny and
doing well with that,” he said.
It was not until the legislature finished its
work in May that Michelle Vargas, chief
financial officer, was able to pull together the
final figures for the estimated $430 million
general fund budget with the knowledge that
the district would not be facing a huge deficit.
The general fund pays the costs of educating
students and operating schools – teachers,
textbooks, transportation and more.
Legislators set school funding levels in
May for the next two years. At one point, it
looked like the district would face a deficit of
about $30 million over the two years. With
the help of some last minute negotiating on
the part of the district’s legislative team,
Anoka-Hennepin ended up with enough revenue to reduce the anticipated deficit to about
$12 million over two years. Superintendent

D I S T R I C T
The district’s budget is divided into six
separate funds, each with a specific purpose.
General Fund pays for the direct

Dennis Carlson praised legislators for “an
outstanding job of putting education first.”
The approved budget calls for revenues of
$422.8 million and expenditures of about
$430 million, leaving a deficit of about $7.2
million. Of that, $2.2 million is the result of
the program of strategic investments the
Board approved last year. These include such
things as expanding all-day-every-day kindergarten, adding Project Lead the Way science
and math electives at middle school, adding
an online school and a biomedical specialty
program at the high school level, and more.
Dr. Wenzel acknowledged the gap between
revenues and expenditures but said the Board
thought long and hard about this early in the
year. “The Board looked at it before the legislative session started and said we think our
district is going in a strong direction and we
are pleased with the outcomes. We didn’t want
to take the chance of upsetting ]8