Another year of declining enrollment coupled with increasing health care costs will likely leave the Duluth school district with a $4.7 million deficit for the 2008 fiscal year.
The number means tough choices for the district as it looks to cut costs to balance the budget.
If the deficit is not reconciled, it could grow to $8.2 million for the 2009 fiscal year.
"We are going to look at every possible expenditure," Bill Hansen, business services director for the district, said. "It's a big number; there is no doubt about that. This isn't going to be easy."
The preliminary estimate was announced at a committee of the whole meeting at Historic Old Central High School following Superintendent Keith Dixon's State of the District address Tuesday night.
ADVERTISEMENT
The number is substantially bigger than the $1.5 million deficit the district faced last year, but Hansen said it did not come as a surprise.
"We forecast a $5.2 million deficit this year if we didn't fix the $1.5 million," he said. "We ended up fixing about $1.1 million of that so we knew we would be looking at something around $4.1million."
The jump to $4.7 million can be largely attributed to an unanticipated jump in health care costs, Hansen said.
The rest of the deficit is the result of a three percent decline in enrollment and anticipated inflation on current expenses.
"This is a sobering number but not one we didn't anticipate," Dixon said.
