Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2012 1:08 AM CDT

The Yankton School District (YSD) school board  unanimously approved the operating budget for the 2012-13 school year at its meeting on Monday.The 2012-13 general fund budget of nearly $14.9 million represents a reduction of over $1.7 million, or a 10.6 percent decrease, compared to the 2011-12 adopted budget. The 2012-13 decrease to the general fund, compared to 2011-12, is primarily due to the utilization of health insurance reserves from YSD’s self-insurance fund, in addition to the reduction of positions.

In order to cut back, the district cut three teaching positions, a dean of students position, eliminated fifth grade coaching positions and froze the classified and administrative salaries for the third consecutive year, along with year two of pay freezes for certified coaching and advisory positions.

“All of those things really contributed to a big reduction in the general fund budget,” said YSD Superintendent Dr. Joe Gertsema.

Jason Bietz, YSD Business Manager, added the budget has been able to stay afloat by the district utilizing the health care reserves.

In addition to the general fund budget, the 2012-13 special education fund budget is a 2.8 percent decrease from the adopted 2011-12 budget. Like the general fund budget, the cuts come due to the utilizing of health insurance reserves.

“It’s important to note that we are not funding health insurance out of the general fund budget,” YSD School Board President Chris Specht said. “The numbers clearly reflect that over the last 15 years, there is a decline in teaching staff at YSD to go along with the lowering student enrollment.”

Bietz noted that YSD school district enrollment is up so far in 2012, which could help the budget in future years with the per student allotment. However, the district is still responding to the trend of decreasing enrollment in the school district over the past decade.

“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.”

In addition to approving the budget for the 2012-13 school year, the board also continued to overhaul the districts health care plan.

The board took Silverstone’s recommendation to drop aggregate stop loss insurance, resulting in about $15,000 in savings to the plan. Representatives from Silverstone told YSD officials that in their experience, only very rarely do claims incurred for the plan reach the attachment point to file a claim on the aggregate reinsurance. In addition, the individual stop loss insurance amount was increased from $125,000 to $130,000.

The Yankton Boys and Girls club also presented to the board that they would like to continue to partner with the school district, and potentially have a facility at Yankton Middle School at some point in the future.

Other business included approving a request from the Gayville-Volin School District that establishes student pickup points in the Yankton School District’s pickup area. Teachers from YSD also presented how they have been using 63-3 Foundation grants to enhance the student learning experience.

The next school board meeting will be held on October 8.

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