Triton School Board members took the next step to a budget for 2025 with a unanimous vote.
Previously, the board had approved the numbers for the coming year, which included a target tax rate of $.84. The bus replacement plan included one new 56-passenger bus that was included in the 2025 budget and capital projects that were mainly maintenance items for the corporation such as resurfacing of the tennis courts at the school.
Superintendent Jeremy Riffle addressed the board on a challenge for the upcoming budget as being the upcoming collective bargaining for teacher salaries.
The money for those funds is determined by the student population count that took place on Oct. 1 and Riffle told the board that the count was 20 fewer students than 2024. Schools are paid a stipend per student from the state and 20 fewer students means a “negative balance” to the school’s funds for teacher salaries.
Riffle reported to the board last month that the corporation had a public hearing regarding community input on issues as the collective bargaining with teachers began and said that while the student count was lower than last year he felt that the school’s fiscal responsibility in previous years would allow them to give teacher raises for the coming year.
Riffle made the statement in a section of his comments to the board he called “challenges” for the coming year and said while the deficit from the lower student population count was just such a challenge he felt that heading to the bargaining sessions the previous responsibility of the board still left the corporation in “…a good place.”
Addressing the board later in the meeting Triton High School Principal Nate McKeand talked about another of Riffle’s “challenges” speaking to the issue of changing requirements for graduation that have been imposed by the state.
He and members of his staff have attended several meetings involving those changes and stated that he felt the school corporation had done a good job providing a wide range of opportunities to graduating students from college-bound to career-bound to trade students and feared that might be affected by the new requirements.
After discussions, McKeand told the board he felt confident that the corporation would be able to adapt to the new requirements without making them “pigeonhole” students into a particular course.
