In a 21-minute special meeting on Wednesday, the Kingfisher Board of Education approved the school district’s estimate of needs for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Prepared by Britton, Kuykendall & Miller of Weatherford, this year’s estimate of needs totaled $11,925,603.53 in the general fund.

The estimate of needs is part of the budget-making process that each school district is required to have prepared and approved. It shows an itemized estimate of proposed expenditures and revenues for the year.

(Editor’s note: The estimate of needs can be found in the legal publications portion of this edition.)

The estimate of needs must now be approved by the Kingfisher County Excise Board.

This year’s estimate of needs is down from the $16.2 million that was approved by the school board last year, one that was later amended by the excise board.

It’s more than $11 million less than the $23.4 million approved two years ago.

Superintendent Andy Evans said four factors play heavily into the reduced number.

One is that Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds are no longer available.

“The district had almost $2 million in ESSER funds from FY 2021 to FY 2025,” Evans said. “Those funds sunset in September 2025.”

Another factor is the decline in gross production revenue.

From FY 2021 to FY 2024, the district received an average of almost $5.9 million a year in those collections.

That number was just a shade under $3 million last fiscal year.

There’s also the decline in carryover.

For that same time span as above, the district averaged about $8.2 million in carryover.

The FY 2025 carryover was $3.3 million, which Evans said caused the available revenue to drop from $23 million in available funds to $16.23 million.

“The reduction in millage last year (by the excise board) eroded into the balance forward by $2.5 million to have us arrive at the current $11.9 million. To have the large amounts of revenue we had available in the past, the balance forward has to be maintained.”

A fourth factor, said Evans, is that revenue has decreased along with the decreased student enrollment at KPS.

That affects not only Kingfisher’s state aid payment, but also the tax-generated revenues as well,” Evans said.

To match the lower estimate of needs, Evans projects expenditures of $12,009,145.23 for the fiscal year.

That’s more than $10 million less than two years ago when it peaked at $22.2 million.

The district’s salaries were $10.1 that year and projected to cost $7.8 this year.

Burdens were at $3.7 million compared to a projected $1.9 million this year.

Services and supplies also are projected to have significant drops totaling nearly $6 million between the two.

“The most important thing is that we’ve made the projected expenditure budget fit the expected revenue,” Evans told the KT&FP. “We are comfortable with the $12,009,145.23 in expenditures because we know we have that much more revenue to cover those costs from federal programs.”

Last year the excise board amended the district’s estimate of needs from the 35 mills ($16.2 million) down to 20.59 mills ($14.2 million), the minimum allowed by state law.

The move was made to make way for the school district to cover the cost of last year’s portion of a $5 million civil lawsuit settlement the district made with Mason Mecklenburg the previous year.

That amount was $1.25 million plus interest, which brought the total to more than $1.75 million.

That avenue negated a tax increase for the property owners inside the school district.

It also resulted in the district going through a reduction in force of some 20 staff members in December.

This is the second year the district will make a payment due to the settlement with one more year to follow.

“I don’t know what the excise board will do with the millage this time,” Evans said. “We have definitely rearranged the budget to fit the expected revenue for this year and cut any extraneous spending.

“We are willing to meet with the excise board to work through any concerns they have.”

Approving the estimate of needs at Wednesday’s meeting were Mike Copeland, Dana Golbek, Charles Walker, Bill Reitz and Brad Wittrock.