ROCORI School Board Cuts Budget for 2026-2027

COLD SPRING (WJON News) -- An area school has had to make some significant budget cuts. The ROCORI Area School Board voted this week to approve over 900,000 in cuts for next year's budget. Superintendent Kevin Enerson says making reductions is always tough. He says some retirements helped make the decisions a little easier:

"We're able to do a little bit more than we even thought. We had six retirements, a couple of other staff members that were transitioning, and so we're able to do some shifting, move some programs around. We didn't lose any programs, and we don't see that class sizes will be going up significantly in any areas."

Enerson says not losing any programs is significant, as their goal whenever they have to make cuts is not to impact students.

On the positive side, Enerson says they were able to approve some of the district's Long Term Facilities Maintenance projects (LTFM):

"We're going to redo a parking lot over at John Clark Elementary in Rockville, and then we have a bunch of capital updates. We got some classroom furniture we're updating in; I think in all the buildings. We've got curriculum processes, of course, and curriculum purchases that we have money set aside for."

Enerson says they will also update and replace some maintenance equipment. Rocori schools have about a $37 million annual budget, and the reductions represent about two and a half percent of that. The final budget will be approved in June.