July 8, 2026
By ANASTASIA PENCHI
DE SOTO, Wis. – The De Soto Area School District passed a preliminary budget for the 2026-27 school year, but administrators cautioned that change will be coming.
“At the end of the day this is preliminary,” said Interim Superintendent Craig Gerlach during the school board’s regular June meeting. “This will change over the course of the summer.”
Schools are required to pass preliminary budgets before they are allowed to process payroll or any other expenses for the 2026-27 school year. The 2025-26 school year ended on June 30, and the 2026-27 school year started July 1.
The preliminary budget passed by the board includes $7,477,711 in revenue; $8,426,781.24 in expenses and $2,099,131.35 in its ending fund balance. The board has prioritized having a fund balance so it does not have to do short-term borrowing in the fall when expenses are high, but revenue isn’t yet coming in.
The district’s Business Manager Cherryl Knowles told the school board 17 percent of the 2025-26 salaries portion of the budget still needed to be paid before July 1. That’s because most staff choose to be paid bi-monthly, so four of the district’s 24 payrolls are paid at the end of the fiscal year (those on June 30; both payrolls in July; and Aug. 15).
In addition, Knowles based revenue on an estimate of 481 students and $742 per pupil because the final student count and the amount of money districts will receive based on that count will not be available until October.
Other assumptions used by Knowles (and directed by the board) include:
- $100,000 for technology
- $65,000 for curriculum and textbooks
- $564,465 for transportation
- $471,812 for maintenance
- $201,643 for supplies
- $4,206,513 for staff
- $193,968 for food
Board member Tony Walker expressed frustration that school budgeting is “so abstract.” He said it’s difficult to know how board decisions are impacting the bottom line when numbers can’t be finalized until later in the year.
“Most of what’s in here you have already approved,” Gerlach said. “It just doesn’t leave a whole lot.”
The preliminary budget for the 2026-27 school year will be finalized in October.
Anastasia Penchi is veteran writer who spent 13 years as a newspaper journalist and now works as a freelance writer. You may have seen her work in Coulee Region Women’s magazine, the Great Rivers Road blog and Explore La Crosse. Her passions are helping people in poverty and trying to save traditional journalism. She resides in Genoa and is a board member with Couleecap Inc. She can be reached at callmeloislane@hotmail.com.
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