The Spring Grove School Board held its first meeting of 2025 on Tuesday, January 21. Board members present were Angie Solie, Kelly Rholand, Stephanie Jaster, Rhan Flatin, Lisa Myhre and Myriah Klug. Klug and Myhre are new members; Superintendent Udstuen swore them in and gave them a brief rundown of how the board functions.
A number of new-year housekeeping items were addressed. Meetings will be held at 7 p.m. on the third Monday of the month, except for February when the meeting will be the third Tuesday due to President’s Day. Erin Benson was designated as the district attorney – she has been the attorney for many years and Udstuen expressed that the district has been consistently happy with her work. Committee assignments for 2025 were then made. Committees include district policy, staff negotiations, building and grounds, transportation and finance.
The main topic of discussion was the results of the 2024-2025 financial audit, conducted by Clifton Larson Allen. The district again received a “clean” audit report. Cash flow over the past five years was studied for each of the various funds within the district budget. The general fund “unrestricted” balance has decreased since 2020 but has been stable over the past two years. The impact of the district’s recent building referendum has started to show up in the debt service fund balance, as the district begins paying off the bonds that were issued.
Overall, 77.83% of district revenues came from the state sources, 3.61% from federal sources, 10.69% from local property taxes, and 7.87% from “other” sources, which includes investment income. On the expenditure side, 71.2% went to salary and benefits, 17.03% for purchased services, 3.79% for supplies, 6.62% for capital expenses, and 1.36% for “other” expenses. Udstuen thanked business manager Tanya Elton for her hard work on the audit.
The final topic of discussion was an issue raised by Udstuen regarding the effects of legislative changes on the district’s official policies. When the legislature makes updates to statutes, the district must also update its own policies to be in compliance. Udstuen described the 2023 legislative session as “crazy” with a lot of great things for education being passed, but this also meant a lot of policy updates to make. She realized that a couple of these updates never got a second reading at previous school board meetings, so were technically not yet approved by the board. She is working to clean this up and the board will likely need to vote on these updates at a future meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 8:11.