CANYON CITY — The Grant School district approved a $20.7 million balanced budget for the upcoming 2024-25 fiscal year at their first budget committee meeting on Tuesday, May 28 at the Grant School District office in Canyon City.
The 2024-25 budget is just over $3.6 million shy of last year’s budget of $24,389,459.
The $3.6 million difference between this year’s and last year’s budget can be attributed to a few factors. First and most apparent, the district’s revenue from federal sources fell from $2.08 million during the 2023-24 fiscal year to just over $785,000 in the proposed 2024-25 budget.
Capital outlay, was also down from the 2023-24 figure of $6,724,625 to $4,342,957 in this year’s proposed budget.
Some costs did rise however, including support services for full-time equivalent district employees, which rose from just over $4.9 million last year to $5.84 million in this year’s proposed budget. The district is anticipating a total of 107.98 full-time equivalent staff for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Superintendent of Grant Schools, Mark Witty, said in his budget message that the district is looking to add additional full-time equivalent positions including a Dean of Students at Humbolt, an online instructor and support staff in support of a hybrid education model as well as an additional teacher at Seneca and a potential school resource officer dependent on the reception of a grant and subsequent talks with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.
The district has received seven grants so far totaling $315,000 for various projects including a greenhouse/chicken coop, a remodel of the GU commons area and $30,00 to support the hosting of exchange students.
Two other grants a $1.5 to $2 million Renew American Grant is pending and would cover costs to upgrade GU’s again HVAC system along with a $1.5 million Community Initiated Projects grant that would be utilized by the early learning center.
The district currently has 15 ongoing projects in various phases of construction totaling just over $7.8 million. The district has spent just over $4.5 million on that set of projects.
The district’s years long issue with declining enrollment, which affects state school funding appears to have stabilized. The current state allocation per student is $10,313.