Sioux Falls school board tentatively approves $347 million budget, including teacher pay raises

The Sioux Falls School District Board of Education tentatively approved its $347 million budget for fiscal year 2025 on Monday night.

This budget includes $10 million in new expenditures that were originally covered by federal COVID-19 funding, which runs out at the end of fiscal year 2024, so the district had to find a way to cover those funds and will fold them into the unrestricted general fund. The budget marks the last of $53 million in federal funding that buoyed the district during the pandemic, the district's Budiness Manager Todd Vik said.

Full approval of the budget will come up in a meeting closer to July, when the new fiscal year begins. District business manager Todd Vik said more than 100 people work on the budget.

“This funding was considered both a blessing and a burden and is an example of one such budget 'deviation' previously mentioned,” Vik said in his budget report. “Never, in recent history, had the District been funded to such an adequate level; nor do we expect adequate funds to be available again to this degree.”

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Board member Nan Baker said it’s been a robust, comprehensive process worked on by people in school buildings and committees. She commended Vik for his work and said the budget will be challenging as COVID-19 dollars go away.

“At the end of the day, the district has a very challenging strategic plan with robust outcomes, and in order to operationalize and see those great outcomes happen, it takes a budget,” Baker said. “The strategy behind the budget isn’t just happenstance. It’s very intentional. It takes a lot of people.”

Board member Kate Serenbetz added the board and district knew COVID-19 funding wasn’t going to be here long-term, and has planned for that for several years.

“We’ve been very diligent about those resources and how we used them when we had them, and the process to kind of step back from that loss, basically, in our revenue,” Serenbetz said.

Vik reported that for district homeowners, the school levy is projected to decrease by 7 cents in 2025, and that the average school property tax increase for a typical house in the district is expected to be 0.7% next year and 2.6% per year over the last 25 years.

New student needs are addressed with this budget, Vik said, like expanding services at Horace Mann “to address the most challenging behaviors in a smaller class setting while reducing the number of students in out-of-district placements,” expanding esports to all four high schools, and resources to match the growing number of English learners and students in AP courses.

The budget also dissolves student assistance teams, eliminates unused eCare services (online nursing), “aligns” sports travel and finds efficiencies in equipment rental, and discontinues the district’s teacher pathway program in favor of a similar program by the South Dakota Department of Education that supports current staff who wish to obtain teacher certification.

For special education, the budget will increase instruction and support to serve birth-to-school-age children, target behavior supports and specialized instruction for elementary school students, and add more board-certified behavior analysts to provide intensive mental health support for all grades.

Teacher pay

Part of the budget includes the state’s 4% increase in funding to education, increases to teacher salaries and the new memorandum of understanding (MOU) that builds on the working agreement between the district and the Sioux Falls Education Association.

That MOU came up in the March 25 board meeting and raises the starting teacher salary, gives an additional 0.75% salary increase to all staff except administration, and advances the salaries of teachers who’ve taught 13 or more years in the district.

More: Sioux Falls School District, Education Association reach agreement to raise teacher pay

More specifically, teachers with 13 years in the district and 17 total years of teaching, and teachers with 20 years in the district and 25 total years of teaching, can both advance to another salary step, which is a 2.5% increase for those staff on top of what’s given.

Beginning teachers will also be able to move up four extra steps on the salary schedule, which means second-year and third-year teachers could also step up the schedule if the district decides.

Between the state’s 4% increase, the regular salary increase tied closely to the state’s funding formula, and significant increases for teachers at or near the top of the salary schedule, teacher salaries are set to increase by an average of 5.2% next year, Vik reported. All support staff will notice a 4.25% bump in paychecks, Vik said.

Board president Carly Reiter emphasized that the 0.75% salary increase is on top of what staff were going to be given as budgeted. She also noted this is the third public meeting the board has had on the budget.

“As we look at bringing new board members in with the election tomorrow, I just want to encourage people that this is an open process, and we have publicly met three different times, and three different times we have asked for public input, and not a single person has said anything,” Reiter said. “If there’s anybody that has an issue with the budget or has a question, I feel like we’ve given ample opportunities for people to come and ask those questions.”

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Reiter said if people are confused or don’t like what board members are doing, the meetings are an open place to hear from people.

“I get frustrated hearing from people who disagree with what we’re doing, but have never once given us feedback or ideas on things that we could be doing differently,” Reiter said.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Sioux Falls school board tentatively approves $347M budget with teacher pay raises