The Carson City School Board on Tuesday adopted its final budget for fiscal year 2025-26 with a total general fund revenue of $80.8 million and reducing its deficit to $3.4 million.
The approval followed Chief Financial Officer Spencer Winward’s tentative budget projections from April that included some deficit spending. The final budget includes the district’s drawdown in its reserves, which Winward called very “healthy.”
CCSD’s general fund expenditures of $85.4 million exceed its revenue of $80.8 million. Initial projections during the tentative budget process showed a deficit of $3.5 million. The district maintained its $1 million contingency and $210,000 carry forward amount and the deficit was reduced to $3.4 million.
Board members expressed ongoing concerns about the district’s dependence on deficit spending to maintain levels of service to students. Declining enrollments could impact CCSD’s adjusted base funding of $70.8 million to $69.6 million for FY25-26 as last reported by Winward in March.
Trustee Molly Walt observed next year’s budget appears balanced page by page but said ultimately cuts have to be made to reduce the deficit and spare tapping into contingency funds.
“I will vote to approve this but … at some point we need to stop deficit spending,” she said. “You know, in a couple years, we're not going to have anything to roll over and that is a concern you know that I have.”
Salaries and benefits make up 30% of the district’s general fund, and the district focuses on positions, services or programs to make cuts where it makes sense to do so.
“If you cut people from the budget, we’re very personnel heavy,” he said. “That’s the nature of education. Do we have things we don’t need? That’s what we look at.”
Winward said he will often take questions about spending on extracurricular or cocurricular activities and their necessity in schools. Those only account for 1% of the budget, an investment that supports student athletes in their education and future sports careers, he said.
Notable changes are reductions to the Pupil Centered Funding Plan dollars from the last biennium with less revenue. This means higher transfers from or shifts in expenditures to the general fund, Winward said.
State grants and special education funds were slightly modified, Winward said. Nevada’s Senate Bill 231 passed in 2023 and dedicates $250 million in matching funds to support districts’ salary increases for employees and support professionals. This funding now falls under CCSD’s state grants fund, he said.
Nutrition services took on a more noticeable impact. Schools no longer offer universal free meals, and projections showed a decrease from the tentative budget. U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations to implement a 50% increase per meal to keep up with the going rate was not optimal for Carson City, Winward said. Instead, administrators chose an average of a 10-cent increase per lunch, which still allows CCSD to comply with federal regulations, he said.
“We kind of feel that would not be doing a service to our families in the community to increase prices that much,” he said. “We feel if we went much higher than that, what we would lose in participation probably would offset any gains that we would get by a drastic increase.”
Capital projects and bond funds have been updated to match CCSD’s Capital Improvement Plan, an item also discussed during Tuesday’s agenda. Major projects this summer include asphalt work, mainly parking lot or slurry seal work at elementary schools and Carson Middle School, bathroom remodels at Carson Middle and Carson High heating, ventilation and air conditioning and perimeter fencing or safety upgrades.
The school district continues to monitor the final days of the Nevada Legislature’s session, volatility in federal funding, enrollment and actual staff costs versus estimates, Winward said.
Trustee Richard Varner, agreeing with Walt, had mixed feelings about supporting the final adoption but ultimately voted yes.
“I think everybody knows how I feel about deficit spending; I’ve been talking about it for six years,” he said. “But I’m glad, based upon the recognition that in the future there's going to have to be more attention paid and some consideration of reducing that deficit spending, if not eliminating it.”
The board voted 6-0 in its adoption, with Trustee Mike Walker absent.