Litchfield School Board Meeting
The Litchfield School Board has approved of a list of budget reduction items that were put together by the administration. The cuts for next year’s budget total $368,005.
On February 9th, the Board approved of a motion assigning the administrative team the task of finding $350,000 or more worth of cuts for the 2026-27 budget. The list includes one full-time equivalent literacy lead, one full-time equivalent focus teacher (student success coordinator), a point-4 Spanish teacher position, three full-time equivalent para professionals (2 Title-1 and 1 special ed.), one full-time equivalent clerical position, special projects support for district reduced days, a varsity assistant wrestling coach, and a middle school track coach. Marcia Provencher voted against the measure as she did not want cuts to be made to the paraprofessional positions.
The Board heard a report last night from Peter Leatherman of Morris & Leatherman regarding a telephone survey that was conducted with 400 random school district residents from late January to early February to help gauge the feasibility of going to voters in November with either an operating levy and/or a building referendum. Leatherman went over the results and determined that residents have positive feelings about the school district, but there is a solid 25% who would not support any property tax increases.
The Board also heard a report from Jennifer Ridgeway regarding the Crisis Management Policy and Comprehensive School Safety Guide which had a first reading approved as part of the consent agenda. Litchfield School Board member Greg Mathews also reported on a meeting that he and fellow board member Darrin Anderson had with a group of community members who are concerned about bullying and he proposed having a community forum to allow people to air their feeling on the topic, but the idea failed on a 3-to-3 tie vote with Stephanie Danielson joining Mathews and Anderson on the idea. The other members wanted to check first with the Minnesota School Board Association on some of the legal issues involved with holding a public forum and taking a different approach to addressing the issue.
