GREEN RIVER — The Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees unanimously approved the 2024-25 budget Tuesday night, with appropriations totaling $60.4 million.

SCSD No. 2 Business Manager Katie Harder presented the budget to the school board, explaining that this year they are transitioning to a budget without Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. The final ESSER grant finished on June 30, she said.

The school district has received over $10 million in Emergency Relief For Schools funds and American Rescue Plan funds since 2020, and Superintendent Craig Barringer said in a previous meeting that $2.4 million, which is 24% of the funds received, has gone directly to staff for both premium pay and innovative ideas. Barringer said the district is losing $1.4 million in salaries in the 2024-25 school year due to the loss of ESSER funds.

He said the district dedicated ESSER/ARP funds to nine certified positions, eight non-certified positions, student learning loss, premium pay, professional development, and technology upgrades. Barringer said that these were funded using ESSER monies based on recommendations from the ESSER Budget Committee in the Summer of 2020.

“We are transitioning to post-ESSER funding this year, and as we move forward we will utilize model funding, grant funding options, attritional savings, and cash reserves,” Harder said.

Budget Highlights

For this year’s budget, Harder said student enrollment decreased from last year by 72 students. Therefore, the district will be using the rolling average for the Average Daily Membership funding rather than the actual ADM. This gives the district a loss of 32 on their ADM funding.  

She said SCSD No. 2’s external cost adjustment from the Wyoming Legislature has been maintained from 2024. Of the $1.87 million to the guarantee, $1.38 million is the ECA with the ADM adjustment.

The school district’s assessed valuation increased by 3.9%, which generates the 25 mills of $33.9 million. However, Harder said the county’s assessed valuation experienced a decrease of 10.1%. She said the district believes that they will generate $4.8 million, as SCSD No.2’s portion of the county’s 6 mill is 32.9% and the other part goes to SCSD No. 1.

The Wyoming School Foundation guarantee is at $33.6 million, and the special education reimbursement is at 100% at $7.5 million. Along with off-model funding, the total amount of funding the district is receiving is $42.2 million, which is a 4.64% increase from the previous fiscal year.

Harder said that in the recapture scenario which is the $33.6 million model guarantee, the state looks at the local resources. These are the local taxes of the 25 mill and 6 mill that the district is going to collect. Harder said the amount SCSD No. 2 is going to collect is $37.5 million, which makes up 111.7% of the guarantee.

“So we are already over,” she said. “Then our local resources, like vehicle taxes and those types of things total $2.1 million. So our total local resources are nearly $39.7 million, putting us in a recapture situation of $5.8 million.”

Appropriations Breakdown

The general fund makes up the majority of the budget with appropriations totaling $45 million. Salaries and benefits are running at 81% of new revenues, and non-salary budgets are at 19% of new revenues.

“Appropriations in the general fund are higher than revenues due to a budgeted one-time curriculum adoption of $750,000, and a return to nutrition services subsidy budget of $200,000,” Harder said.

The Special Revenue Fund has total appropriations of $3.9 million, and major maintenance totals $4.4 million. The remaining funds all have appropriations of $1.6 million or less. The Nutrition Services Fund has appropriations totaling $1.5 million with revenues at $1.3 million. In FY 2024, nutrition services revenues were at 1.1 million with paid meals being almost $500,000. Federal reimbursement is at $.38 per paid meal, and the summer meal program reimbursement was nearly $40,000. Harder said that was drastically reduced from the previous year.

This year the district received a supply chain grant of $51,640, however they do not anticipate another grant for next year. For FY 24, expenses for the year were $1.4 million, which was only 89% of the nutrition services budget, “which was very good,” Harder said. This leaves a beginning balance of $581,917 for FY 2025.

“We are getting back to the way it used to be where we don’t generate enough revenues for the expenses,” Harder said. “But we are in good shape with reserves and the subsidy.”

As for the voluntary mill levies, there have been slight increases in revenue, however the total mill levy stays static at 44.7 mill. After deducting all available cash and estimated revenues from the appropriations, the following amounts must be raised through general taxation:

• General Fund: $33.9 million (25 mill)
• Sweetwater BOCES: $677,800 (.5 mill)
• Region V BOCES: $271,120 (.2 mill)
• Recreation Board: $1.3 million (1 mill) 

To view the budget presentation, click here.