Henning School general fund grew in 2023
News | Published on January 23, 2024 at 5:46pm EST | Author: henningmaster
0School board discusses options for graduation
By Chad Koenen
Publisher
One year after deficit spending over half a million dollars in its general fund, the Henning School Board received some positive news from its year-end audit on Tuesday night.
During its regularly scheduled meeting last week, the Henning School Board heard that the school district received $107,033 more revenue in its general fund than it spent in a fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2023. That is a stark contrast from the 2022 year-end audit that showed the district spending $547,038 more than it received in revenue in the general fund.
Last year the school district received $5,801,238 in its general fund and spent $5,715,365. General fund money can be spent on primary operations of the school district in providing educational services to students from kindergarten through 12th grade. This includes everything from transportation, activities, capital outlay projects and education as a whole.
While the general fund did increase significantly last year, the school district is still below its policy of maintaining a 25 percent unassigned fund balance. The school district fell below that policy for the first time in at least 10 years last year after its deficit spending last year. This year the school district ended the year with an unassigned fund balance of 18 percent, which was up from 16 percent just 12 months ago.
Tracee Bruggemann, of the Brady Martz accounting firm, credited the school board for increasing its unassigned fund balance, but said it will need to monitor its enrollment and revenue moving forward to ensure it has enough money in reserves to fund everyday activities.
“The school district should be aware of changes in enrollment and the fund balance,” she said.
School board member Rod Thalmann said even though the school district is below its unassigned fund balance policy, Henning School is in better shape than a number of school districts across the state. Thalmann recently attended the state school board convention and said some larger school districts have just 3-5 percent in their unassigned fund balance.
“I know we are behind our goals, but we are in very good shape compared to 80 percent of the schools out there,” he said.
School board member Andy Eckhoff said this year’s audit was much more positive and optimistic than the audit the school board received just last year.
“Much more positives than last year from what I remember,” he said.
In other news
• Heard book reports from fifth grade students Conner Hagen, Jade Pearson and Emmy Spires
• Approved setting a work session on Feb. 20 at 5:30 p.m. to review the school district’s budget.
• Accepted the following donations: $250 from AutoFix for swimming lessons and t-shirts, $100 from Legacy Power for swimming lessons and t-shirts, $80 from B&D Foods for swimming lessons and t-shirts, $200 from Hormel Financial Services Corp, $250 from TNT Repair, $500 from Building a Legacy Education Foundation for the Pages for a Purpose program and $23.80 from the Box Tops for Education program.
• Heard the school district recently received an estimate for a new gym floor from FLR Sanders for a total of $179,756.10. This is up by about $50,000 from the estimate the school district received in 2021 from the same company. The high school gym floor dates back well over 50 years and is in need of being replaced in the near future.
• Heard from Henning School Superintendent Melissa Sparks about the high school gym floor. She cited a report she received from Johnson Flooring that stated the slippery gym floor is likely due to the finish and maintenance of the gym floor, as opposed to needing a new gym floor. According to the report the school would need to change the height of the doors and basketball hoops as the gym floor will be raised approximately one inch. Johnson Flooring reportedly said putting in a new gym floor would result in more padding on the floor, which could prevent unnecessary injuries by playing on a harder surface.
• Heard the school district is exploring possibilities for graduation this year. Some of the discussions revolve around moving graduation to the Trinity Center or moving it ahead a week due to the need for using the high school gym for storage for the upcoming HVAC project this summer. Henning Principal Thomas Williams said he will meet with the families of the senior class to discuss plans for graduation this spring. There are only 17 students in the senior class this year.
• Heard the first day of school for the 2024-25 school year will likely not begin until Sept. 9 due to this summer’s HVAC project at the school.
• Heard from board chair Reed Reinbold about anonymous threats that were made against the Fergus Falls School District, as well as several other businesses in the Fergus Falls area last Monday. Reinbold said there have been hundreds of hoax active shooter calls that have been made across the state and the country since the beginning of the Israeli-Hamas war. He said most of the hoax calls feature an individual with a foreign accent who threatens the school district. He said the calls appear to be coming from inside the country, but the calls like the ones on Monday appear to be a hoax.