Enrollment is down in USD 475 by approximately 1000 students since the 2013-14 school year.

Dr. Corbin Witt, Superintendent of Schools, said that the ebb and flow of the Military population affects the school District.

“We will go through and continue to monitor that, and it will cause us to receive some less funding this year from our smaller number enrollment,” said Witt. “We’ve done some things to normalize everything to be able to withstand that type of funding cuts.”

Witt noted that the enrollment count also affects the budgeting process, because monies to Districts aren’t allocated until July 1st leaving little reaction time for District officials.

“Hopefully the State will come through with a new finance formula, hopefully it will have some consistency to it so that we can look at budgets and know what our budgets are going to be in advance and do better planning,” said Witt. “It’s really hard when they’re not giving our budgets to us til July, so we have to kind of prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Witt visited the KJCK studios Tuesday morning after the Board of Education meeting on Monday, May 8th.