Glenwood Community School District Approves FY26 Budget

The bad news?

The Glenwood Community School District needed to cut $750,000 from its 2025-2026 fiscal budget due to a 94-student dip in enrollment this school year.
The good news?

The district achieved those cuts without eliminating staff or any major programming, according to Glenwood Superintendent Nicole Kooiker.

“I feel really good about where we’ve arrived at,” said Kooiker. “We have quality programs, kids aren’t impacted and we didn’t have to reduce any programs directly related to kids. We reduced some resources and we’re down some people and we’re down a custodian, but everyone got to keep their job. Now, their job might look a little different but everybody stayed employed who wanted to be employed.”

The Glenwood Board of Education formally approved the $35.8 million fiscal budget following a public hearing and a unanimous vote at a meeting last Monday at the district central office.

Due to its enrollment loss over the last school year, the district had been aware for months cuts would need to be made. The 94 students loss equated to a deficit of $750,000 in state funding. The Iowa legislature announced early this year month it was setting its per public supplemental aid at $7,893 for 2025-2026.

All cuts are hard, Kooiker admitted. And even harder when staff positions are on the table. It’s why she insisted on a collaborative approach, where “listening to all the voices out there” only made sense as they navigated a belt-tightening process.

“The nice thing is we had a team come up with the cuts,” she said. “I didn’t direct it. I didn’t say, ‘This is what we’re doing.’ I worked with people, we looked at data and then we went to staff and came up with an initial draft.”

Kooiker asked staff to tell administration what was missing and where the proposed cuts were off balance.

“They’re the closest to the situation,” she said. “And they gave us ideas. From taking everybody’s input, whether it’s the transportation department or the custodial or food services, all the ideas mattered and people were willing to share them.”

Kooiker said the cuts came from a variety of areas from not backfilling a handful of vacant positions to eliminating redundant or underused applications, programming and resources to reductions in AEA services.

“We looked at people retiring or leaving and not replacing those people,” she said. “It’s good operational practice to make sure we’re looking at data and reviewing positions when they come open and determining if they need to be filled, especially when you consider 80 percent of our costs are staffing.”

An intentional examination of how, and also how effectively, the district uses its many education applications budget and the services of the AEA allowed the district to better pick and choose its resources and only pay for what they’re actually using.

All that to arrive at a budget where students aren’t going to “feel the difference.”

“I’m not saying staff won’t,” Kooiker said of the cuts. “We’re still losing things and people will have to step up. But we did also lose 94 students as well so things have to balance out."

A bright side to the district’s fiscal responsibility Kooiker sees is a reduced property tax burden on district residents and the retirement of all of its general obligation bond debt. With its cut of $1.25 per $1,000 on taxable valuation, Glenwood’s property taxes now sit near the 50th percentile statewide, according to Kooiker.

But work needs to continue to be done – both fiscally and in student retention, Kooiker said. The district is in the process of gaining final approval for its own virtual school while adding programming to its high school Pathways program with the hope of stemming further student loss.

“I want Glenwood to be the place that people want to come to, they want to stay and get a quality education and they know they are truly cared for when they’re in our district,” Kooiker said. “I think we’re taking steps to get there. Budget-wise, we need to continue to watch and plan and keep programs and opportunities available for all kids.”