Duluth school district expects to cut $5 million next year

DULUTH – The Duluth school district expects to cut $5 million from its next budget, the equivalent of 50 full-time teacher positions.

Like others across the state, district leaders point to the end of federal pandemic relief aid, inflation, new unfunded legislative mandates and rising special education costs.

Duluth voters also rejected a $52 million technology levy twice in the last year and, after the second time, Superintendent John Magas warned of future cuts.

“These decisions are not made lightly,” he said in a news release this week. “We understand the impact these adjustments may have, and we are committed to minimizing disruptions to our students’ educational experience.”

Leaders haven’t said how many layoffs there could be.

Expected reductions include $1 million to elementary schools; $1.3 million to middle and high schools; $1 million to administrative staff positions; and $1 million from the special education and care and treatment department.

With a general fund budget this year of about $120 million, the district employs 1,200 people, about half of them teachers. Enrollment is around 8,700 students.

Duluth Federation of Teachers President Ethan Fisher said he hopes layoffs will be largely absorbed by retirements, which are typically about two dozen each year. He said the budget conversation is happening much earlier than usual, before state lawmakers convene for the next legislative session and school districts have an inkling about potential state aid increases. It’s raising alarm bells for some, Fisher said, at a time when morale is already suffering from squeezed resources.

Magas, who joined the district at the start of the pandemic, has mostly worked only with positive budget situations in Duluth, adding positions over three years — many administrative — with $30 million in pandemic aid, Fisher said. But it was a blip after decades of annual cuts.

Other new hires haven’t experienced anything like the proposed reductions, Fisher said, “so anxiety is going to be high.”