ELLSWORTH — During the Sept. 10 Ellsworth School Board meeting, the board heard the preliminary year-end unaudited budget for the 2025-26 school year.

After budgeting for a $390,419 deficit, the district is now looking at a $586,003 deficit for the year. The expenses for the year were about $730,000 over what was budgeted; however, the revenues were also about $530,000 over the budgeted number.

Treasurer Michael Petersen laid out expenses that reached beyond the budget including a superintendent search, Eau Claire Academy tuition for students the school could not service, tree services, additional auditing services, furniture for an office, and “the big item” being health insurance over the budget by $156,000.

Petersen said more people took the family package than expected, and some staff turned 26, bringing the district over budget.

As for revenues, the largest source for the discrepancy was a $110,000 increase to the budgeted federal aid sources.

“When I look at the actual unaudited spends, we have $24,262,000, so we had additional spends,” Board President Julie Lundstrom said. “If I take the actual budget to the spends, it’s over a million-dollar difference.”

Lundstrom expressed concern about the discrepancy between the budgeted expenditures and the actual expenditures. Board members Steve Mark and Gary Kressin also said they were concerned about the discrepancy.

“You could take an extreme response and say we’re going to budget for the worst-case health insurance,” Petersen said. “That isn’t helpful either, because in the year we end up $2 million long.”

Petersen said the expenditures that brought the school out of budget were outside of district control.

The district was at a 4% differential from budget, and 2% is what the district aims for. New Finance Specialist Traci Lewis said the district will need to reevaluate but not overreact.

Athletics

The board jockeyed with a position to manage the new fitness center and golf simulator, ultimately voting to table discussion until more information is gathered 5-2 (Kurt Buckner and Petersen opposed.

The position would be estimated at $20,000 for 20 hours of work a week. Responsibilities would include navigating equipment and simulator usage time, overseeing a group of student or community supervisors, coordinating and maintaining the digital hall of fame and other maintenance tasks.

Superintendent Brian Nadeau said they are looking at opening these facilities to the community, but keeping the priority on students and student teams. He said they would make a conscious effort not to “compete with them or undercut them in any way.”

“We’re not looking at profit centers here, we’re looking at trying to have some revenue to offset some of the expenses,” Nadeau said.

Athletic Director Kevin Haglund said they are exploring a golf simulator league where people pay to team up with a partner and golf 18 holes for 10 weeks. He said if they charged $150 per partner to be in the league and get 20 teams, they would make $6,000.

Mark asked Nadeau if the simulator was an item that came to the board, to which Nadeau said it was not. He also critiqued approving the project without factoring in a budget for oversight.

“It’s not a large expense, but making a pivot to use the space as a capital expenditure, and not having the budget for its maintenance and oversight seems like it’s a lapse.”

Nadeau said the maintenance was accounted for, and without the position students and student teams would still have access to everything. What the position would do is allow for community extension.

Assistant Principal Rob Heller said, as a former JV golf coach, they are the only school in the conference without a driving range. With girls golf encroaching on winter and boys golf starting in spring, Heller said there are many days the team cannot hit the course, so this allows them to practice. He said it removes the cost of bringing the team to other towns to hit the driving range when necessary.

Haglund made comparisons to the pool, as student workers can oversee the fitness center, but to open the doors to the community it takes hired staff.

“I feel this is just early. I don’t disagree with the position of this or that we need it, I just feel we have so much information that we don’t know,” Lundstrom said. “How much are we going to charge? What are the hours? What are we going to do? We don’t even have construction completely done.”

The board agreed to inform Nadeau on any information they would like to see before the item returns to the board.

A few board members also floated the idea of an all-athletic pass, where community members could access the pool, fitness center and potentially golf simulator under one cost. Haglund said the position could help develop that idea further.

The board discussed an agreement with the village and the Hubbers to divide costs for projects and maintenance at Summit Park. Haglund said getting the village commit to contribute along with themselves and the Hubbers is a win, but there were some tweaks the board and Haglund agreed they would like to see in the agreement.

“It’s a win for us and the Hubbers because the village hadn’t been a part of those [conversations],” Haglund said.

As all three organizations have a stake in the costs, they felt the wording for how projects are approved needs to be further expressed. As an example, if the Hubbers and district agree on a project, but the village is not interested in it, would it be a majority decision or would it have to be unanimous.

The board asked Haglund to flesh out the questions with the village before approving.

Personnel

The board approved the following personnel changes:

Hire: Jonah Campbell, middle school phy ed/health teacher.

Resignation: Danielle Lewis, assistant middle school music director.

Extra/Co-Curricular: Jonah Campbell, seventh grade assistant football coach; Caitlin Dahl, eighth grade assistant girls basketball coach; Faith Iwerks, eighth grade girls basketball coach; Jessica Kuske, seventh grade volleyball coach; Shane Lange, seventh grade football coach; Shelby Lawler, girls JV assistant golf coach; Jeremiah Paulson, high school varsity assistant baseball coach.

Other business

• A community survey timeline was approved, allowing residents to weigh in on a potential referendum vote for April 2026. The survey would hit mailboxes in approximately November.
• Acknowledged Ethan Ladwig for his upcoming training to become a Navy SEAL. Acknowledged the eighth annual back to school event at the elementary school. Thanked a list of people who helped respond to recent flooding inside the high school. Nadeau said they helped significantly decrease the potential for damage.
• Approved a Project Search agreement for the 2025-26 school year with River Falls.
• Approved an updated employee handbook to clarify staff working hours.