While final action awaits, a four-day school week could be one of the options utilized by the Ely School District in order to cuts costs and balance its budget next year.
Details are sure to emerge over the next several months, but the district figures to be in a cost-cutting mode again given continued declines in student enrollment, high school student defections to Vermilion Community College and rising costs.
Superintendent Anne Oelke stressed Monday, during a board study session, that “no decisions have been made on any reductions,” but indicated that a move to a four-day week is on the table.
“We would be very remiss if we didn’t talk about it,” said Oelke. ‘That’s over $100,000 in savings. It has to be something we keep talking about.”
Several area school districts, including the neighboring St. Louis County 2142 (Babbitt-Embarrass and Tower-Soudan) and Lake Superior (Two Harbors/Silver Bay) districts have shifted to a four-day schedule, and some other regional districts are also exploring similar options.
The most recent analysis, compiled by district finance manager Jordan Huntbatch, shows that the district might save anywhere from $130,000 to $150,000 in operating expenses next year by making the switch.
That would help reduce a budget deficit that’s still undetermined for 2026-27.
But school officials expect another gap, given another expected loss in student enrollment, “We’re looking at a decrease of 16 students, and that’s $160,000 in (lost) revenue right there,” said Oelke.
The district also will likely bleed further revenue to the college, given projections that as many as 51 students will utilize the post secondary enrollment option program, which allows high school juniors and seniors to take courses at Vermilion and simultaneously receive high school and college credit. This year, there are 38 PSEO students.
Combine the enrollment losses with inflation and rising costs and the district seems certain to face a third straight year of budget cuts.
“We’re not out of the weeds yet,” said Oelke. “The first year we tried to stay away from the students as much as possible and did about $250,000. The second year we were going for $460,000, so we’ve done substantial reductions the last two years and we’ll have to hit pretty hard again this year.”
The district’s budget and finance committee met prior to the study session and discussed potential staff cuts for next year.
More discussions are likely later this month, both at the committee level and at a board study session on Feb. 23.
Formal action would take place in March or later.
“Between now and March we’ll be talking more about reductions,” said Oelke.
The superintendent also pledged that the district “will be as transparent as possible so nobody is caught off guard and there are no surprises,” with a timeline expected to be released related to the budget decisions.
Board chairperson Rochelle Sjoberg also stressed the district will communicate as the process moves forward.
“This is super impactful to our entire community and all of our staff,” said Sjoberg.
Sjoberg also endorsed continued exploration of a four-day week option.
“It is a significant amount of savings,” she said. “I concur with their recommendation that this is something the board should be looking at.”
Any budget moves for 2026-27 would come on top of reductions made the last two years, which encompassed a wide assortment of areas. Those included some reductions in teaching and paraprofessional staff, cuts to other district jobs, and elimination of some bus routes and service contracts, as well as both cuts to some extra-curricular program funding and fee and revenue increases for those programs.
As a result of budget challenges, created by rising costs and drops in student enrollment, the district has been in the red the last five budget years, with losses in fund balance each year as follows:
• 2021 - $412,221;
• 2022 - $464,774;
• 2023 - $97,709;
• 2024 - $472,979;
• 2025 - $254,691. The budget deficits have coincided with a tumble in student enrollment, from 574 in the 2019-2020 to a current total of 491 currently.
The district anticipates graduating 38 seniors and replacing them with only 22 kindergarten students in the fall and more troubling times may be ahead, given some high school classes in the range of 50 students or more.
Huntbatch also briefed board members this week about changes to the 2025-26 budget, and new expenses that have affected the bottom line.
“We’re looking at probably 100-ish thousand dollars more than we budgeted for,” said Huntbatch. “We had some things that changed. We had a teacher that went from .6 to 1.0 (full-time equivalent) and some changes in health insurance. We had two new families join and a couple singles so that was a pretty big increase. We also hired a paraprofessional and there were some longterm sub costs with some people out on leave. The good news is we budgeted pretty conservatively on enrollment. That’s good but still doesn’t quite offset the additional costs.”
The board will review a revised 2025-26 budget at the Feb. 23 study session.
