SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – The Sioux Falls School Board is getting ready to approve next year’s budget and as they look at the money, they say they are in trim mode.’
At Wednesday afternoon’s school board work session, Superintendent Jane Stavem said this is the first time since 2012 the Sioux Falls School District has been in a trim mode for the budget. She highlighted some of the variables.
“One of those variables is what the legislature decides for state aid which, unfortunately, for this year was 1.25%. So that’s one variable that changed from last year,” Stavem said. “The other variables were realities like ESSER dollars that came in during a pandemic and the things that were paid for with those dollars that then go away with ESSER dollars. A few of those items we kept in place knowing that, overtime, we would need to continue to eliminate items from our budget to get down to complete post-pandemic funding.”
The proposed budget for FY26 includes a cut of over three million dollars and some reductions to staff positions. However, Assistant Superintendent Jamie Nold says that no *people will be losing their jobs.
“There is the available space that they will be in this District,” Nold said. “It’s nobody losing a job, per se, it’s just that it may shift slightly from where they’re currently at.”
The board says departments have known for three or four years that a cut was on the way.
“We gave each of those kind of budget departments a choice, right, we said we know that we need to take four percent out of our budget so you can choose what that looks like,” School Board President Carly Reiter said. “You can choose to take four percent the first year and then maintain. You can choose to do nothing the first year.”
“And so this is really shocking to see as much as we’re cutting back but we have to keep reiterating that departments have had these tough conversations, but there’s still going to be hurt feelings in a lot of ways,” School Board Vice President Dawn Marie Johnson said.
Stavem said another variable that is going into the budget is student enrollment, which she said stayed flat this year.
