Budget cuts raise uncertainty

Interim Principal Wendy Loberg said as soon as she heard about the district’s $1 million budget overage, she knew she had to take serious measures to prevent the situation from worsening.

“I said to all the department leaders, ‘From here on out, I’m going to put a freeze on budget spending, (that) doesn’t mean you can’t buy what’s necessary, but I want to talk with you before you make the expenditure,’” Loberg said.

According to Superintendent Astein Osei, Loberg’s role as principal is crucial in solving the problem at hand, as well as making sure that the situation does not worsen.

“We’re having principals or ‘budget managers’ work with building leaders at school and say ‘what are some things we know we’re not going to do that we can cut out of the budget’ so we can allocate those funds back to the general fund which helps us close that million dollar gap,” Osei said.

The budget overage, caused by an overestimation of district-wide enrollment, was concerning news to junior Olivia Brown. According to Brown, she’s afraid budget cuts could affect programs that she is involved in.

“Coming from someone who is in the arts, it makes me a little bit nervous to know that we already don’t have a large budget and we went over by so much and that could cut down on what we asked even more,” Brown said.

Junior Will Dooley, who is a percussionist in Park’s band, is concerned the budget overage will affect the band, which is already over budget to begin with. 

“Our band budget was quite a lot over this year, and part of the effect that had on me was we actually needed to use some of the money we’ve got from fundraising in order to make up for some of that deficit,” Dooley said. “Usually that money will go directly towards taking kids on trips and so some kids in band might not be able to go on a trip in their four years at the high school, which is really sad.”

According to Loberg, students shouldn’t be too concerned about budget cuts, as a lot of the over-spending was counterbalanced by funds that weren’t needed this year.

“Some of those [budget cuts] just happen naturally, because of the pandemic. Look at athletics…  they’re not paying for buses and officials and all that stuff. So we’re saving all of that, thankfully,” Loberg said. “But in the end, you students aren’t getting any cruises either, which is so frustrating for every one of us that cares about kids.”

Osei said he doesn’t know what will be affected by the over-budgeting in specific, as some state-level funds are yet to be determined. 

“It’s too early to say, so I don’t want to speculate on what may happen next school year,” Osei said. “There’s still some things that we’re waiting on from a state funding standpoint to get clear about before we can have a clearer direction on what that will mean for us locally at St. Louis Park schools.”

Loberg said while she is uncertain about the coming years, it is still a number one priority of her’s to be cautious about spending during the next couple of months.

“There’s reason for concern, because of what we don’t know. If the state would forgive all of us, we’d be so blessed, right? Does the state have the resources to do that? I don’t know,” Loberg said. “I would say it’s very important that we’re very cautious about spending right now, and continue to realize that we have potential for making significant cuts.”