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With little discussion and in a nearly empty room, Ely School Board members authorized more than $450,000 in budget reductions for the 2025-26 school year.
The moves, which reduce teaching staff in both the elementary and middle/high school buildings, were approved unanimously at Monday’s regular board meeting and with no public feedback or opposition.
The cuts are meant to balance the district’s budget after several years of deficit spending, and were endorsed by the board’s budget and finance committee a week earlier.
Washington Elementary School will have fewer teachers next fall, including just one teacher for a 24-member kindergarten class and reducing both the 28-member third grade and 34-member fourth grade to a single section, with a “floating” teacher working in both grades in core math and English subject areas.
Both the middle school and high school will also see reductions in teaching staff as well, and board member Tom Omerza said it was all but impossible to avoid teaching reductions given the circumstances.
“With this amount, and I think take a look at our budget with 60 percent going toward wages and benefits, how can you not affect that,” said Omerza. “It just has to happen.”
Omerza noted that Ely is not alone in making reductions. Neighboring St. Louis County District 2142 has both cut teachers and will move to a four-day week while Hibbing has cut nearly 20 teaching positions.
“Pretty much 100 percent of the public schools in the state are having challenges with both sides of the ledger,” said Omerza. “It’s a statewide challenge for all public schools from Minneapolis down to Ely sizewise.”
Board chairperson Rochelle Sjoberg called the moves “a very difficult decision to have been made,” and thanked staff, administrators and others involved in the process.
“The challenges that we face, many of them are somewhat beyond our control,” said Sjoberg.
Sjoberg added that the district “to the best of our ability” avoided a negative impact to curriculum.
Superintendent Anne Oelke called the reductions “necessary,” adding “there’s no alternative and we don’t know what’s coming from the state or federal government.”
(Continued on Page 2) “We are being challenged with those reductions with larger classroom sizes,” said Oelke. “But now is when the real work starts with my team and staff that’s going to be impacted... The work is not going to be stopped.”
Oelke added, “It’s been a very difficult time since January,” when work began on trimming the budget.
She also pledged “to watch enrollment like a hawk” and recommend future changes, including the potential addition of teaching staff, if enrollment growth warrants a move.
“If we have to adjust, we have to adjust and I will come back to you and say ‘this is not going to work,’” said Oelke.
The reductions approved this week came despite about $250,000 in spending cuts and revenue enhancements made a year ago, as well as voter approval of a $350,000 per year levy last fall.
At least two of the teaching reductions will be absorbed through attrition, given the pending resignations of two staff members.
Declines in enrollment have triggered some of the cuts in the elementary school, with only 176 students currently projected to be enrolled in grades K-5 next fall, including a 24-member kindergarten class.
Since an earlier budget session, Oelke also recommended that the district use a teacher for core subjects in third and fourth grade, while maintaining single-section classrooms.
Other items on the list were:
• Reducing a sixth-grade teaching position to .4 FTE for core language arts and math classes;
• Reducing music education from 1.8 to 1.6 FTE;
• Reducing Spanish from 1.0 to 0.6 FTE;
• Reducing the English department from 2.8 to 2.0 FTE.
• Eliminating two bus routes;
• Reducing purchased service contracts by $40,000;
• Eliminating a part-time custodial position;
• Eliminating an overload teaching assignment by moving sixth grade back to the grade 7-12 schedule;
• Eliminating the community education position and adding duties to the assistant principal;
• Reducing some miles traveled by school sports teams and raising athletic participation fees for seventh and eighth graders as well as the family cap; Data compiled by the district showed cuts made for 2024-25 stayed almost entirely away from teaching staff and impacted employees including aides, secretaries, cafeteria and student help, administrators and paraprofessionals.
The reductions not only impact the elementary school but the middle and high school as well, with fewer class sections and the elimination of some courses that had fewer than 10 students registered.
As many as 39 high school juniors and seniors are expected to take classes at Vermilion Community College in 2025-26.
The district gets as little as 20 percent of the state aid for many of those students, and creating a budget hole of $300,000 or more.
To date, school officials have shown no interest in moving to a four-day week, which has been enacted by the neighboring St. Louis County District 2142, which operates schools in Babbitt and Tower. An analysis by district officials showed that a four-day week could bring about a budget savings of about $77,000.
As recently as 2017, the district had 598 students enrolled in grades K-12, but that number has since tumbled, with current enrollment at 512.
The district’s adjusted average daily membership, the number that determines state aid to districts, has fallen more dramatically and does not show signs of ending.
Using state formulas, the district’s ADM fell from 574.69 in 2020 to 495.83 this year and is expected to tumble to 462.73 for 2025-26.
State aid is the largest source of district revenue and has fallen faster - because of enrollment declines - more than initially estimated by the district.
Meanwhile, the district is facing rising expenditures and has posted general fund deficits every year since 2021, with overall district fund balances falling from nearly $2.9 million in 2020 to $1,451,474 this year.
Unassigned fund balances have shrunk by about 75 percent during that time period and earlier this year the school board adopted a revised budget showing a $318,495 gap for 2024-25.
An anticipated inflationary increase in state funding for 2025-26 amounts to $92,546, but is offset by a $330,000 hit because of enrollment losses.
The district also faces a loss of compensatory revenue from the state and the 2025-26 budget includes assumptions for new costs related to payroll taxes and summer unemployment, as well as salary increases as employees advance on the pay scale, and potential negotiated changes.
Together, it makes for a 2025-26 deficit of $459,431 if no other reductions are made and no additional revenue materializes.
