Board gets update on revised budget, proposed levy

The New Prague Area School Board received a report on enrollment and budget projections during its meeting Monday, Oct. 24.

Finance Director Sandy Linn talked about enrollment projections that will be used for the revised budget which will be presented in December. She said the district had 17 ways of projecting enrollment and took a look at which methods had been most accurate over the past four years. Based on that, they will use a method called the "four-year county average," which is in the middle of the range of those presented at the October 10 workshop meeting.

"The rate of growth for the district the last five years has been 1.46 percent. We are projecting that growth to slow to 0.3 percent over the next five years," Linn said.

"The thing with projections is, you know you’re going to be wrong. The question is, how wrong are you going to be?"

The projections include Open Enrollment numbers. She showed a chart that indicated the district had seen an increase over the last seven years in open enrollment net gain, from 167 students in 2009-10 to 275 this year.

The projections are important because they are the basis for the budget.

"It’s important to get these numbers right and avoid cutting programs," Superintendent Tim Dittberner said. "If you get into a cutting mode, you’re going to.....

To see more on this story pick up the October 27, 2016 print edition of The New Prague Times.