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Baseball battles spring weather

Baseball’s home opener was supposed to begin Friday April 14, but it was moved to Centennial due to poor weather. Junior Graham Sullivan said it’s a struggle to prepare in the bad weather.

“We are mindful of what’s happening at the legislative level,” Osei said. “For the current budget, we made an assumption the funding formula would increase by 2%, which is more of a conservative assumption, recognizing that right now, there’s talk about up to 5%. There’s going to be an opportunity to utilize additional funding to bolster some of our reserves.”

Kraft said he’s confident about the potential capabilities of the funding developments.

“I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to make things a lot better in terms of education funding,” Kraft said. “It’s not going to fix it all. There’s a lot of work to be done. I’m hopeful that we’re going to be able to address some of these (funding) gaps.”

Magnuson said that increased funding will have a negligible effect on the budget for the 2023–24 year, and meanwhile, the most fiscally responsible thing to do is create a budget that doesn’t rely on an uncertain increase in funds.

“If we say, ‘Let’s not cut anything,’ revenue will go up and expenditures will go right into it,” Magnuson said. “We’re trying to be good stewards of public funds so don’t have this whiplash effect of budget cuts every single year.”

Student intern for the Finance Advisory Committee (FAC) Alicia Margalli shared how her feeling of confusion on budget decisions changed while working as an intern on FAC.

“I would see (cuts) at the school and I’d be frustrated because I never really knew how the financial part of the school works,” Margalli said. “(Being an intern has) definitely given me a new perspective to trust the people who are in charge of the financial advisory committee.”

“ If you look at how much funding schools have gotten, it hasn’t been changing with inflation ... we’ve been really dis-investing in education.”

Larry Kraft, MN state representative

According to Osei, many factors impact the direction of the school’s funding — one of those being Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO).

“As a school district, we receive state funding per student,” Osei said. “When students engage in PSEO in partnership with whatever school, we pay a portion of that student’s per-pupil revenue to that educational institution. There’s this belief that, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have PSEO options because you’re losing money.’ It’s not as simple as, ‘PSEO is bad.’ It’s a tremendous benefit for students and families. Any school district would be wise to offer that.”

Recently, a Minnesota law was passed that grants free school breakfasts and lunches to students in every public and charter school across the state. Magnuson said the new law affects a different part of the budget than where cuts are targeted, so it will have virtually no effect on budget cuts.

“It starts next school year, and school nutrition is separate from the general fund,” Magnuson said. “We cannot use school nutrition funds to supplement the general fund. The free meal program will just replace what families pay for the pattern meals with state funding to cover the costs.”

While a myriad of elements contribute to upcoming budget cuts the School Board, in conjunction with the FAC, is trying their best to balance these cuts while minimizing the effect on students, according to Margelli.

“Budget cuts aren’t a positive thing, but we have people in the FAC who truly understand how it affects students and teachers,” Margalli said. “We are making sure it’s not going to negatively affect students and teachers as much.”