BROOKINGS — Teachers in the Brookings School District will get a pay bump next year thanks to some number crunching by district officials.
The Brookings School Board approved the master agreement between the district and the Brookings Education Association.
Board President Deb DeBates said the negotiation with the teachers association went well.
“We had some good discussion around some items and were able to come some compromises that I think we all felt good about at the end of the day,” she said at this week’s meeting.
DeBates noted that due to the efficiencies found in the budget process, the district was able to offer teachers a 2.5% pay increase, greater than the 1.4% increase mandated by the state Legislature this year.
Earlier at the Monday meeting, District Director of Business Services Stacey VanBeek presented the board with preliminary budget numbers. VanBeek noted that an expected enrollment decline of about 40 students, paired with increases in expenses for insurance, created a budget pinch.
She said the district spent many hours focusing on efficiencies in several areas. She said that, with the extra with efficiencies created by the school boundary changes as well as other district-wide efficiencies, they should be able to balance the budget with little to no impact on services or the students.
VanBeek said one of ways they found some efficiencies involved copiers, whose numbers the district will cut in about half.
She said the final budget will be presented in July, but they are projecting a total budget of $64,271,288.
VanBeek stated, “I’m very proud to say that the district saw that we were going to have all these increases coming in and rose to that challenge to say ‘Were going to have to find some efficiencies to make this work,’ so that we aren’t overspending and are keeping within our means. I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done over the last several months.”
— Contact Doug Kott at [email protected].
Leave a Reply