It is a picture of gloom that Supt. T. R. Olson paints for the New Ulm School District’s financial future.

Olson, speaking to a somber school board on the subject of possible budget cuts, estimated the school district will be $300,000 in the red next year.

THEREAFTER, Olson said, the financial picture could get worse because of declining enrollments,even if those enrollments level off.

“I guess you can point fingers and I guess you can accuse and I guess you can second-guess,” the superintendent said, “but I think there are many logical reasons for it.

“We look around and say,’Well,why did this happen?’and we were always rather proud of our $625,000 surplus.”

INFLATION, he said,is probably a prime reason for the problem. That and limited state aid and declining enrollments.

Inflation,according to Olson, has come “in a lot of areas where we didn’t expect it and where it hit us very bad.”

While supplies and salaries have gone up substantially, Olson indicated that the amount of money for education from the state has grown inadequate.

“The amount of money that they increase in the (state aid) formula each year has not kept up with what it costs to educate a pupil,” he said.

IN ADDITION, he noted, the tax levy limitation has not kept up with inflation.

“On your lives,we have to levy to the limit,believe me,” Olson stated.

Decreasing enrollments is one area in which the district has not yet felt the pinch, he said, but he predicted that the pinch is coming.

“In three or four years, we will be feeling that lump,” he predicted.

THE PROBLEM, he pointed out, is that even if enrollments level off, the district will be losing high school students, where the state counts each student as 1.4 students for funding purposes, and gaining them in kindergarten where a student counts as 0.5 students or the lower elementary grades where he counts as 1 student.

“It isn’t just losing a pupil,” Olson said. “It’s losing a pupil and four-tenths of a pupil, and this is what has been hurting them (smaller districts) and we’re going to have to face up to that, people. The time is fast approaching.”

Ultimately, after the district has cut back as much as it can, Olson said, the board may have to go to the voters with a referendum for more money, even if the odds are that the referendum will be defeated.

“The only way I think we’re going to wake up the legislature,” he said,”is by districts running referendums. To me, it is an indication that we’re in real trouble.”

AS CONSOLATION to the economic woes, Olson pointed out that a number of districts have already come under the pinch.

“What we see is increasing costs, lower (levy) limitations and a formula that is not keeping up with inflation,” he said, “and when we get decreasing enrollments, that means that much more.”

Brown County Journal

Oct. 15, 1975