The Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education is taking a more deliberate approach to the 2025-26 budget, hoping to avoid the challenges that marked the past year.

Ahead of Wednesday’s regular meeting, the board held a work session to review the budget narrative for the upcoming school year, discuss key concerns, and outline priorities. The administration is continuing efforts to make the budget more accessible and easier to understand.

“I would recommend we continue to separate all this out,” RFSD Chief Financial Officer Christy Chicoine said during the work session. “If we plan to approve it during the June 25 virtual meeting, that will just give everyone a little more time to review.”

Wednesday’s discussion marked one step in what Chicoine described as a careful, deliberate process toward a balanced budget for 2025-26.

“We are mainly focused on the general fund today,” she said. “We have $150 million to go through over these next couple meetings, so there is a lot of information, and we are trying to break it up as much as possible.”

The work session covered a wide range of topics tied to the budget. After a brief moment of recognition for the finance team — achieving a balanced budget with a $250,000 favorable variance for the current fiscal year, a projected $900,000 in unencumbered reserves for 2025-26, and new oversight measures in place — the focus quickly shifted back to the work ahead.

“We will need to pay careful attention to the below items during 2025-26 to be able to plan for any potential upcoming financial challenges,” the budget narrative states.

Chicoine highlighted several uncertainties: the future of federal funding, declining enrollment, rising healthcare costs, unpredictable housing markets, and the district’s technology mill levy.

The general fund’s largest revenue stream comes from per-pupil funding, with the state providing $12,633.79 for each of the district’s 5,627 four-year average students. Without this combined state and local funding, the district would lose more than $70 million annually — making the ongoing decline in enrollment a significant concern.

Board President Kathryn Kuhlenberg spoke candidly about the risks tied to enrollment and warned that increasing the general fund budget could create problems if student numbers continue to drop.

“If we’re increasing [the general fund] and we’re expecting increased enrollment by 100, I don’t see that happening,” Kuhlenberg said. “The birthrates are just not there. We don’t have that many kids in the valley. I don’t know how we are going to get 100 more kids across five different programs.”

Last year, RFSD narrowly avoided a shortfall by allocating an additional $1.3 million to the general fund. That allowed the district to meet the projected student count and keep any funds not spent on unfilled classrooms.

With less than a month until the scheduled budget approval on June 25, several details remain unresolved, including final figures and pending grant awards. The June 25 meeting will be held virtually and is open to the public.

The next regular school board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 11, at the Carbondale District Office, 400 Sopris Ave.