Anoka-Hennepin school board approves plan to close $21M budget gap

The Anoka-Hennepin school board on Monday unanimously approved a plan to close a $21 million budget gap for next school year by using reserve funds and making staff cuts at the district office.

After hours of discussion and multiple split votes, the board chose to ax hundreds of district office positions and delay cuts to school sites, at least until the 2026-2027 school year.

The plan involves dropping the district’s fund balance to 8% of general fund expenditures — lower than the current board policy of 10% — and cutting more than 200 district administration and central office positions, including in the human resources, student services and transportation departments. Associate superintendent positions will be eliminated.

The plan does not include asking taxpayers to pay more to support school operations, representing a sort of compromise between two options previously recommended by district staff, said board members.

Anoka-Hennepin is the state’s largest school district with more than 38,000 students and 5,100 staff members, according to the Minnesota Department of Education’s website.

The two proposals for closing the budget gap were outlined for the board and community members in previous discussions:

“This third option is right in the middle,” Board Member Jeff Simon said, adding that he hopes delaying school-level cuts will minimize disruption and allow district staff to talk to legislators this coming session about the burden of underfunded mandates for schools.

Board Co-Chair Zach Arco agreed.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to ask the taxpayers to fund the errors of the state,” he said, explaining why he didn’t support an option before the board that involved turning to voters for more money next fall.

In recent surveys and community meetings about the proposed budget cuts, nearly 90% of respondents said they supported an option that involved delaying cuts and asking taxpayers for more money.

Board Co-Chair Kacy Deschene said none of the options before the board represented a “perfect solution for everybody.”

“We do know cuts are coming,” she said. “I feel like I’m repeating that as a broken record, but I want to make very clear that option three, as it’s before us, does not mean there are no future cuts.”

At the start of the meeting, Superintendent Cory McIntyre thanked the board for months of budget-cut discussions. The cuts are necessary because of a “convergence of factors,” he said, including declining enrollment, the sunsetting of pandemic relief funds, inflation, higher-than-budgeted raises in employee contract settlements and new mandates from the state.

“I know the work has been stressful as you’ve considered the very passionate feedback from many voices,” McIntyre said, adding that he would support any option the board chose and all of the choices would require compromise. “While the challenges are real and the decisions difficult, we must move forward with a balanced budget that serves the best interests of our students and staff.”

More details about the budget cuts, including the $5 million cut from district administration and central offices this school year, can be found on the district’s website.