The offices of the Douglas County School District are located in the historic Minden School.
Douglas County schools are going into the new fiscal year down $4 million, District Business Manager Susan Estes told trustees at their June 26 meeting.
“We are going to be in a hole,” she said.
Declining enrollment, salary and benefits increases, and more special education students are all affecting the district’s budget, Estes told School Board trustees at their June 26 meeting.
Trustees’ first resolution of the year augmented the $66 million 2024-25 budget.
Nevada counties receive funding based on the number of students.
Douglas has gone from a peak of 7,300 in 1997 students to the current enrollment of 4,870, fewer than attended in 1989.
In the last two school years, enrollment has dropped more than 400 students.
Estes said the only elementary school in the district with more than 300 students is Minden.
“No one in Nevada’s 17 counties has had the enrollment deduction that we have,” said Estes.
Estes explained the comparison between the December amended and the June final budget and some of the overextended expenditures.
“They’re not overstated, they’re actually overextended because we couldn’t budget for those,” said Estes. “They should have had some adjustments at the beginning of the year.”
Estes said the district is going to be in a corrective status in the upcoming year and will have to work with the Department of Education to put a corrective plan into action.
“It is based on the overspending of what we should have kept in 2024 and 2025,” she said. “It’s not a very good picture, but it is the way it is and we really don’t know until we are done with the audit and all the expenditures have been set forth for the current year.”
 A school bus driver spoke on the budget, expecting to get some insight for herself and recent cuts she’s experienced.
“I’m just a struggling bus driver, trying to pay my bills and, Wow, this has been eye opening,” she said. “Seems like we’re paying a lot of money to attorneys. It’s really concerning to me to hear enrollment is in such a dire state, and I hate to consider leaving, but I can’t afford any more pay cuts and I’m sure teachers can’t either.”