Although the Kingfisher Board of Education didn’t approve an estimate of needs at last week’s meeting, there was still a fair share of money talk by Superintendent Andy Evans.

The board held its regular August meeting on Monday and an item to approve the estimate of needs was on the agenda.

However, Evans told the board that there wouldn’t be an estimate of needs presented because there was an item that needed to be cleared up before it was completed.

However, Evans did present the board his monthly report, which included noting the district’s valuation dropped nearly $8 million from last year.

This year’s figure is $134,252,694. The valuation is the total taxable value of all properties located in the district’s boundaries.

“This was due to a loss of personal property tax and utility tax,” Evans noted to the board about the decrease.

The decrease was repeated throughout much of the county with Cashion being the exception.

That district’s valuation from county property rose from $77.1 million to nearly $81.6 million.

Okarche’s dropped from $75.3 million in 2024 to $73.1 million this year.

Hennessey had $77.9 million last year and sits at $73.7 million in 2025.

Dover dropped from $82.4 million in 2024 to $78.9 million in 2025.

Those figures come from the Kingfisher County assessor’s office in its report to the county excise board.

Valuation is used to determine the amount of property tax revenue a district can collect to fund its schools.

Also dictating funding levels is student enrollment.

That also has gone down at KPS.

Evans said in his report that the district’s average daily membership (ADM) is nearly 53 students less at the beginning of this school year compared to the end of the 2024-25 campaign.

A big portion of that, Evans said, was the size of the graduating class compared to that of this year’s incoming pre-kindergarten class.

There were 91 graduates in the class of 2025 and there were 68 enrollees in pre-k this year, according to the most recent numbers provided by Gilmour Principal Makylah Tollefson at Monday’s meeting.

That is the smallest class in the district, currently.

The largest is this year’s freshman class, which had 117 students at the time of the report. The junior class has 101 students.

All others range from the high 70s to the upper 90s.

The state Department of Education uses a formula to determine state aid, including a “weighted” ADM. Evans said the decline in enrollment led to a decline in 77.62 in that figure and the initial state allocation to the district is $148,569.84 less last year.

Evans said part of that is expected due to the state holding back 1.5% at the beginning of the year, which is about $48,000.

He also said the district should see a mid-term increase of about $46,000.

Revenue for the district has dipped compared to this time a year ago as well, to the tune of about $1.2 million.

Contributing to the dip is the fact the district received $577,284.94 from the state a year ago as reimbursement for the teacher pay raise of 2024.

That was a one-time allocation that it won’t receive again.

The number is also slightly skewed because the district hasn’t yet received state aid, flex benefits and other state revenues that it had received by this time a year ago.

Last year those benefits totaled about $290,000.

The district’s largest revenue generator is gross production.

To date, KPS has received $590,626.31, which is nearly $20,000 less than last year.

Evans has also reduced the staff size - and salaries from a year ago.

The district has a net reduction of $144,368.57 compared to last year. He said that’s equivalent to about three staff members.

“As our class sizes have gotten smaller, we have had to reconfigure our staffing patterns,” he said.

Evans continues to be optimistic of the district’s budget situation, which has been precarious since he took over just under a year ago.

However, he also continues to preach fiscal responsibility.

“We have built the budget with exceeding caution to try and maintain our budget integrity,” he said. “We don’t know what twists and turns we might have this year and we want to be prepared.”