Schools facing sanctions by state government have received their fates from the interim legislative appropriations committee.
After appeal, Frederick Area and the Miller School Districts will not face full financial penalties.
These reviews for all of South Dakota’s school districts are normal and are designed to ensure financial accountability to the state by setting spending and saving parameters.
Namely, school districts must meet minimum or maximum financial numbers or face sanctions from state government.
Non-compliant schools could face accreditation reviews, fines, and bans from competing in state-sanctioned sports.
Frederick Area needed to meet a 40 percent financial benchmark, while Miller was placed at a 30 percent rate.
Namely, to be within that window of spending-to-saving ratio district wide.
Cody Stoesser is the Department of Education financial division director. He explained the financial benchmarks and the ultimate results for Frederick and Miller during this week's appropriations meeting.
While these benchmarks aren’t always met, Stoesser says there are often extenuating circumstances lawmakers must consider.
“A lot of times, it’s teachers they couldn’t hire or multiple teachers they couldn’t hire," Stoesser said. "In Miller’s case they had a fire over there.”
Ultimately, the Miller School District received a full waiver. Frederick Area School District faced partial penalties but avoided the worst possible results.
Sen. Taffy Howard explained her motion for the reduced sanction.
“They are balancing the effort to impose a little bit of a penalty," Howard said. "To say ‘okay, this is wrong, you had 12 months to get the timing right,’ but balancing that with not penalizing them with an impact that will be detrimental going forward.”
Frederick faces a 10% budget penalty. Full waivers were also granted for Lead-Deadwood and Hill City.
