By Charlie Mahler
Budget planning for the Northfield School District’s 2026-2027 academic year is gaining momentum. At this week’s school board meeting, district staffers responsible for the Child Nutrition and Community Education programs submitted budget proposals for the coming school year.
District Director of Child Nutrition Services Stephany Stromme proposed $3.3 million in expenditures for the district’s child nutrition budget. Roughly a million and a half dollars, each, is spent for food and supplies and salaries and benefits. Equipment and purchased services account for less than $50,000, combined, among expenditures.
Revenue to support the spending is split between local, state and federal sources, with $356,600 sourced locally. During her board presentation, Stromme highlighted the financial realities the district faces for providing a complete, nutritious student meal for the cost, she noted, of a coffee shop latte.
“That value is $4.82 per meal,” she said. “That doesn’t just take into effect the food that we’re serving. That cost also needs to cover the employee benefits, paperwork, repairs, labor, equipment, custodial costs. So, there’s a lot that needs to go into what we’re serving to the students.”
Stromme’s proposed budget expenditures are roughly $15,000 less than her department’s adopted budget for the current school year.
District Director of Community Education Erin Bailey proposed roughly $4.5 million in 2026-2027 expenditures for the community education program, about $20,000 less than the revenue the program expects to generate.
Unlike Child Nutrition which relies on significant state and federal support, Community Education draws more than $3 million of its revenue locally through enrollment fees from its more than 16,000 program participants.
“This is a duplicate count,” Bailey noted. “So let’s say you attended our school-aged care program every day for an entire school year you are counted once. So you are counted one time per program for every program you may have attended. I’m really happy with that number and the number of people from the community who’ve been touched by community ed.”
Her department’s biggest expenditures are centered on salaries and benefits for the more than 600 program instructors as well as district administrative staffing.
Charlie Mahler is a Senior Reporter for KYMN News. Contact him at charlie@kymnradio.net
