Reporter: Melody Holehan-Kopas

Every May, the DVUSD School Board has a Board Work Session to go over the proposed budget. The proposed budget is a guestimate of where and how the money will be spent. In October, after the 100^th day of school, the district will publish the Annual Financial Report with the exact numbers. State funds are doled out to the districts based on the number of students in attendance ON THE 100^th day of school.

During the work session, it was explained that the district made a concerted effort to hire district staff for positions that are contracted out at a higher rate. For example, School Psychologists and Speech Pathologists are hard to hire because they can make more money in the private sector. The district often must contract those services to meet the needs of the district’s students. Bus drivers are also often contracted. The more employees the district can hire reduces the extra expenses on contract employees.

It was also explained that DVUSD always budgets according to the worst case scenario. For that reason, they have not found themselves in the red for spending money that wasn’t there. DVUSD practices fiscal conservatism to remain financially healthy.