(Spirit Lake)– Hundreds of people gathered in the Spirit Lake High School gym Tuesday evening for a special school board workshop that featured Larry Siegl, an expert on school finances from the Iowa Association of School Boards.
The fact the Spirit Lake School District has overspent its authority in recent years is forcing the board to make nearly a million dollars in cuts to its budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Sigel says it was simply a matter of the district draining its cash reserve in an effort to try put off the inevitable.
Representatives of the CARES group say the district should have seen the problem coming a couple years ago. Sigel agrees with that to an extent, but he says the severity of it caught the district off guard. He says it was compounded by declining enrollment.
Sigel added Spirit Lake isn’t the only school district in financial straights. He says there are many many more just like it…many in worse shape than Spirit Lake.
The Spirit Lake school board meets in special session for a budget work session Thursday at 5:30 p.m. That meeting will also be held in the new gym at Spirit Lake High School.
