Our Challenges
Solving Today's Needs to Prevent Tomorrow's Problems
We work hard to balance our budget with state funding. The district prioritizes funding for educational programming, student support services, and critical building needs. But with the rising costs of education, construction, and what it takes to keep a school running, our budget has grown tighter, and large investments—like replacing roofs, HVAC, and district vehicles—have been delayed.
As part of our ongoing facilities assessments, we identified repairs, replacements, and upgrades to important systems to maintain our buildings, keep our vehicle fleet current, and support our students through technology equipment and staffing. These needs are bigger than the budget we have available.
If we do not address these challenges now, we will face more expensive repairs as these systems begin to fail and the cost to replace them continues to grow.
Pine River-Backus Schools is seeking voter-approved funding for these capital projects this April to balance investments in upgrading and maintaining our buildings, transportation and technology systems while protecting the great education students receive in our district for years to come.
Our challenges include:
Roofs that need replacement to protect buildings from damage
Outdated and inefficient HVAC systems
Deteriorating floors and windows
Aging fleet of buses and passenger vans
Sustainable technology investments
Districts across the state rely on local voter-approved funding to support their schools
The State of Minnesota provides a majority of funding to all public K-12 schools. However, due to inflation and new state mandates for how some funding must be spent, this funding alone isn’t enough to cover the full costs of education for our students.
Over 70% of school districts in Minnesota have voter-approved operating levies to help close the gap in funding and ensure their schools have the resources they need.
Pine River-Backus does not have a voter-approved operating levy.
