Park County School District 1 is budgeted to spend just over $2 million more for the 2024-2025 school year in part to continue funding programs initially paid for by COVID-era grants being phased out.

This year’s revenue and expenditures are both budgeted at $32,859,100 compared to last year’s expenditure of $30,598,376, although Business Services Coordinator Mary Jo Lewis noted the school never completely expends its budget.

The budgeted amount for expenditures is increasing in part to the phasing out of COVID era Emergency and Secondary School Relief funds. Some programs previously funded by ESSR will now be paid for out of the general fund, Lewis said. The ESSR funds were not subject to supplement versus supplant, while other federal grants must add to not replace something within the district. So if another grant applies to those programs they could be shifted back out of the general fund, and the district is always looking for grants in order to be able to leverage their funds. 

The increase in revenue comes in part from a tax shortfall grant, which is nearly $1 million paired with an external cost adjustment that was roughly $1.2 million, Lewis said. The district also received reimbursement for increased special education funding, travel, and increased reimbursement for students living in Mammoth Hot Springs from the year prior as well as income from increased interest.

She also added that the district hopes the Legislature will continue to provide ECA’s to school districts as it helps with a variety of costs. 

“We're hoping that the Legislature continues to fund the external cost adjustment because you can see what that did for our revenue stream, it helps us. It helps us keep staff, it helps us with increased costs in our supplies and our equipment, and everything that we have going on out there, so we would like to see that occur.”

Last year’s budget was expended at 99.9% according to the budget explanation provided by the district. It is uncommon for the district to expend that much of the budget, Lewis said, but the district chose to spend on some items, as well as work to pay down its cash reserves to 15%. During the pandemic schools were allowed to have as much as 30% in cash reserves but that amount has to come back down by 2026 unless otherwise raised.

Last year’s expenditures included once again funding the health reimbursement arrangement for staff, purchasing new classroom equipment and furniture and updating some aspects of Powell High School that had not been addressed since the building's first year. 

Lewis also noted that Powell had a successful year in sports and activities with many teams traveling to state and even national competitions.

The base salaries and steps and lanes of staff were also increased thanks to money earmarked by the Legislature specifically for that purpose.

“When you're in the people business, your people are always the most expensive line item in the budget. And I want to say that our budget, we are not atypical, but between 80% and 85% of our budget goes to salaries and benefits of the people who take care of the kids in our system,” Superintendent Jay Curtis said. 

The district will receive $9,386,225 in local mill levies and $3,373,035 in county mill levies. The district also approved 1 mill to the recreation district and .5 mill for Powell Valley Community Education. 

“Our district continues to be in excellent financial condition. We are very responsible with the funds that are entrusted to us by the public,” Curtis said. “We live within our means. We're not overspending in areas. It's always very important to us that we pass a budget that we feel that we can take care of without dipping into our reserves.”

The budget can be viewed in its entirety at pcsd1.org.