Published: Saturday, September 8, 2012 1:08 AM CDT

As of the end of August, enrollment at the Yankton School District (YSD) was up from where it was at both the beginning and end of the 2011-12 school year.

On Aug. 31, enrollment at YSD was 2,691 students. This was up from 2,665 in September 2011, and 2,632 in May 2012.

The official student count for state aid funding will come on the fourth Friday of September, and enrollment typically changes from the beginning of the school year until that date.

“We take the number of students we have in the district on the 4th Friday in September for the official count,” YSD business manager Jason Bietz said. “The first day of school count always fluctuates from where it is on the fourth Friday.”

YSD has been experiencing a decreasing student enrollment since the 1997-98 school year, when enrollment was at 3,341 students. Enrollment has declined nearly every year since then.

School districts across the state are allotted $4,490.92 per student, a number that is subtracted by the local tax effort in the community. The end result is the amount of state aid a school gets to operate.

“It’s a very complicated formula,” Bietz said. “Every year, the per-student allocation number is at the center of discussion for the legislature when they discuss school funding.”

The per student allotment increases annually by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), or 3 percent, whichever number is less. This year, the per student allocation amount was increased for FY 2013 by 2.3 percent.

In the mid-1990s, the formula for school aid was different from what it is today.

“The old system in the 1990s never had a per student allocation,” Bietz said.

However, when Gov. Janklow sought office, he ran on the platform of reducing taxes across the state, Bietz said. This became the foundation for the system that is now in place with the per-student allotment.

During the past 17 years, the allotment has increased by about $1,200 per student.

“Some school districts say that the system has never adequately funded the costs of education,” Bietz said. “Although its intent is good, it has never annually produced enough ongoing new revenue to keep up with the rising costs of education.”

In FY 2012, Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced funding cuts across the board, including cuts to education. Schools across the state were projecting about a 5 percent decrease to funding, but that decrease turned out to be more than 8.5 percent, Bietz said.

“The cut to YSD was about 10.3 percent of revenue,” he said. “We found ourselves on the wrong ends of two declines, both with funding cuts and a decreasing student enrollment.”

YSD Superintendent Dr. Joe Gertsema believes enrollment in the district last year may be the lowest they will ever experience.

“We are thinking that last year’s enrollment might be the lowest we’ve experiences, but we don’t know yet,” he said.

Bietz said that YSD’s projected enrollment came within four students of the August count.

“We rely heavily on the birth rate census when projecting enrollment,” he said. “If we start to see a spike in births in the current year, we can project five years down the road and adjust that model accordingly.”

However, Bietz said nothing indicates a sudden spike or decrease in population for Yankton County.

“Although there is a slight growth in population in Yankton, it’s an aging population,” he said. “An aging population won’t really produce school-aged births.”

During the last 10 years, YSD enrollment is down by about 450 students. Bietz notes that YSD officials are closely monitoring student enrollment and are taking appropriate actions.

“We are constantly monitoring class-size ratios, especially at the elementary levels,” he said. “We don’t fill positions through attrition whenever we possibly can. For this school year we are in right now, four teaching positions have been eliminated because we didn’t need them. We would love to have them because it would bring class ratios down, but we couldn’t afford them.”

The YSD School Board will meet Monday at 5:30 p.m. at the Administration Building on 2410 West City Limits Road. Among the items to be discussed include adopting the 2012-13 school district budget, making changes to the YSD employee health care plan and authorizing a tax levy request, among other agenda items.

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