Crawford County R-1 Superintendent Brian Witt brought the budget to the Board of Education’s attention on Dec. 15 as a mid-year update.

“So looking in there, first off, just the budget numbers, 2025-26, the 39 percent there with our fund balance, our revenue is $11.1 million and our expenditure is $13 million,” Witt said.

Board Secretary Danielle Waldron was able to set some parameters on balanceHQ, a cloud-based software program used to help school boards manage their finances, to help predict what the budget will look like in the upcoming years.

“This is where it forecasted that we would be. It suggests that by the end of the next school year...our fund reserves would be at 19.93 percent and dropping after,” Danielle said.

Board members agreed with Witt that a change needed to be made.

“We spend 74 percent, 75 percent of our money on our people, and when I say our people, that’s all staff, that’s also their benefits,” Witt said. “If we’re going to make, you know, a change to avoid this future cast, the majority of the change, that’s where it’s going to have to take place.”

Board President Jason Gobin mentioned that the seven or eight positions that were made by the district over the last four years probably shouldn’t have been made.

Witt said that the district may have to start thinking about what staff positions could possibly be eliminated or absorbed.

“And, you know, when you start absorbing positions and things like that, we’re talking about class size,” Witt said.

He explained that the high school was experiencing classes with low enrollment, some with five or six people in a class. They think that having smaller classes at the earlier level, like grades kindergarten to second grade, is more beneficial to the students, with the class size increasing with the grades.

“...And we don’t have electives to give up,” Gobin said.

It might get to the point where teachers have to leave their comfort zones and teach more elective classes.

Gobin suggested a class of about 30 people, but it is like multiple classes all in one. For example, one class, but some could be in Algebra 1 and others in Algebra 2.

Witt said that they would like for the change to be natural.

“When someone leaves and someone retires, we do not replace the person,” Witt said. “When I say that, we possibly have that position and move someone because we’re heavy in some areas and light in others.”

They would like to try for retention, but if that fails, the school might have to start thinking about reducing its workforce.

“I mean, the first time it was told to us, we were told we were going to be negative by 2027, so we’ve gotten lucky that we can squeak into 2029,” Gobin said. “We’ve been telling the staff it’s coming the last four or five years.”

Board members would like to wait before they get to that point for those who are retiring or leaving on their own.

“I didn’t know this until...I went to the facilities academy and facilities planning and stuff like that. In our bond language, it’s written where you could do this. I asked very specifically, is a preventative cost and repair that we could use it, and so we could use that very strategically for three straight years,” Witt said.

There is a little over $300,000 transfer limit, though. Waldron said they should use some of that money to help fund projects around the school district.

Vice President Sean Kaysinger suggested co-oping teachers with neighboring districts.

“Is that something that’s ever been considered for, like higher-level math, science positions that are hard to fill?” Kaysinger said.

Witt said that it has worked in some small school districts. In some others, they had a teacher teach one class and broadcast it to other schools.

Taking a look at the priorities that were from their survey and the school faculty survey, they restructured some of them based on level of importance.

Kaysinger brought up the high school main and hub restrooms. Witt said that he thought they should prioritize the hub bathrooms, and that they plan to replace the worst ceiling tiles, and then “we would systematically go in, replace the different areas.”

“I think I would move the new concession stand up,” Kaysinger said.

Marty de la Torre, board member, said that they need to prioritize updating the HVAC in the gym.

Gobin said that during the school’s energy audit, they found they were losing a lot of money, causing all the other units to run double time “to try to cool all that hot space.”

“They said we’re losing $100,000 in power a year because of it,” Gobin said.

Kaysinger mentioned the high school softball fence.

“ It’s got to be addressed because of safety,” Witt added. “A high school gravel parking lot (getting) asphalt, we need that, but if you’re talking about something that’s a safety issue versus that, focus on safety.”

To help save money, Ryan Cole, board member, suggested chip-and-seal for the extra lot that is usually just used during events, instead of paving it.

Nothing on the list has been approved yet.

“Until we get prices, we can’t really evaluate any further anyway,” said board member Stephen Waldron.