ROCHESTER — The Rochester School Board on Tuesday approved a budget of more than $400 million for the 2025-26 year.

The milestone follows a year that included a referendum for a large operating levy, the discontinuation of federal COVID-19 funding, as well as the decision to reorient the way the district finances its schools.

Prior to approving the budget on Tuesday, the school board heard a preliminary presentation of it on June 3.

“When we proposed the referendum, we said to the community that this was not a strategy for new investment; it was a strategy to avoid gigantic cuts,” Pekel said at the June 3 meeting. “The commitments that we said we would make in the referendum are all made in this budget.”

The district’s total revenue for 2025-26 is projected to be $410 million, and the expenditures are expected to be $445 million. The difference of $35 million has to do with several large projects the district is undertaking, including those at Mayo and John Marshall high schools.

Earlier this month, the district sold bonds to finance those projects. The money from that bond sale that will be used to pay for those projects is being set aside this current year, but the expenditures from the projects will accrue in the coming year.

According to RPS Chief Administrative Officer John Carlson, that means the deficit of $34.9 million shown on this coming year’s budget will be paid for with the surplus funding from the current year’s budget.

The district’s general fund for the coming year has revenues of $306 million and expenditures of $309 million. Carry-over revenue from 2024-25 will give the general fund a surplus of $298,216 by the end of the year.

“This is essentially a status-quo budget,” Pekel said on Tuesday.

The approval of the budget came after several notable milestones throughout the year.

In September, the district spent the last of the federal COVID relief funding that it had been using to supplement its budget since the pandemic. It also included a redesign of the way the district funds its schools, which was aimed at giving the individual buildings more flexibility.

The largest milestone came in November 2024 when voters in the Rochester School District approved an operating levy that would provide an initial amount of $1,133 per student, although it would be allowed to increase with inflation for the 10 year-life of the levy.

According to a memo provided for Tuesday’s meeting, the funding associated with the new operating levy will amount to $19.8 million for the 2025-26 year.

Prior to the referendum, the district announced that if it wasn’t able to secure the additional funding, it would have to close three schools.

On Tuesday, the District’s PTA president Joanne Barkmeier spoke about the significance of that additional funding.

“The loss would have ripped through classrooms, hallways, homes and hearts,” she said. “Because this community came together, because families, schools and neighbors showed up, we are not making cuts tonight.”