Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Lake Linden-Hubbell Business Manager Jeff Klein discusses the district’s budget during a special meeting Thursday. The board approved revisions to the 2020-21 budget and the budget for 2021-22.

LAKE LINDEN — Lake Linden-Hubbell Public Schools Board approved a $4.02 million general fund budget for the 2021-22 school year at a special meeting Wednesday.

The budget includes $4,036,187 in revenues and $4,021,926 in appropriations. The district will carry a projected fund balance of $203,678 into the coming school year.

The district’s fund balance is still short of the 12% to 14% recommended by the state for a district of Lake Linden’s size, said Business Manager Jeff Klein.

“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction,” he said.

The district is anticipating a three-year blended count, as opposed to the “superblend” authorized by the state Legislature for last year. That formula used 75% of the previous year’s attendance and 25% of this year’s.

Superintendent Brad Codere said the district is anticipating going down from 396 students to 380.

“We were happy to come out of 2020-21 with the surplus that we have, but but it gets eaten up right off the bat with that 16 students if we go with the three-year blend,” he said.

Some of that could be ameliorated by state aid increases. The proposed budget currently in the state Senate would eliminate inequities in state aid between smaller and larger schools by giving every district a $8,700-per-student grant, a 2% increase for smaller schools.

The district is looking to restore a part-time foreign language teacher position after it was unable to fill it last year, Codere said.

“The few that had to have something took them online, but for foreign languages especially, it’s not ideal,” he said.

The district also approved levying 17.525 mills. Voters had approved 18, which was reduced because of increased property tax revenue within the district.

In other action, the board accepted band/music teacher Laura Schramm’s letter of resignation. Schramm was offered a similar position in her hometown.