(ABC 6 News) – Rochester Public Schools are set to meet Tuesday evening, and it couldn’t come at a more pressing time, with teachers unsure if they’ll even have a job next year and students at risk of losing their extra curriculars.

The Rochester school board has already cut $20 million from the general budget after a 2023 referendum was voted down in November. This resulted in the closure of multiple schools and over 100 RPS staff losing their jobs.

That referendum proposal is on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.

According to a report by the school board, the potential deficits that this district and many others across our area are facing is a result of several factors; but what the district made point of was that funding from the State of Minn. has not kept up with the level of inflation plaguing the country.

And some legislators agree.

“Over about $2 billion of new additional funding, so the education budget itself is the largest percent of our state budget. The funding that they did receive was very restrictive, there were mandates that were unfunded, much of the increased funding was actually eaten up,” said Republican State Senator, Carla Nelson.

Should the referendum not pass, the Rochester school board will be forced to cut about $20 million from the 2025 school-year budget; impacting class sizes, the number of staff they can keep in our schools and the schools themselves could be at risk of closing down.

The meeting is at 5:30pm, but an important note is that the vote is not whether to pass the referendum, but instead whether to put it on the ballot for a vote during the November election.

(ABC 6 News) – The Byron school board discussed several topics in their meeting, Monday; one of which being a surprising amount of staff resignation and reductions set to be effective over Summer.

This comes after Byron Public Schools failed to accurately project it’s budget and just last week voting on a large portion of budget cuts, following a season of deficit spending. The district says although people may not like it, decisions like these are necessary to keep the schools running.

“It’s going to have a negative impact on us but we’re going to try to do the best we can to make sure that our quality, because I know we can keep the quality of education high in Byron, but it’s something that this community is not used to,” said Mike Neubeck, Superintendent for Byron Public Schools.

A recording was available from Monday’s meeting, but has since been taken down.