MARSHALL — This year’s state legislative session is one that is going to have a big impact on schools going into next year, Marshall Public Schools staff said this week.

On Tuesday, MPS Director of Business Services Dion Caron said changes to the state’s formula for general education funding meant a funding increase of $275 per pupil unit in the 2023-24 school year.

At the same time, however, Caron cautioned that formula increases would be smaller in 2024-25.

Caron talked about legislative impacts during a budget presentation at this week’s school board meeting.

“We’ll hit some points on how the legislative decisions’ outcome has affected us directly,” he said.

Going into the next school year, Minnesota will see a 4% increase in its formula for general education funding. The next year, there would be a 2% increase.

Caron said the 4% increase would be $275 per pupil unit. Based on MPS’s estimated adjusted pupil unit count for the 2023-24 school year, that would work out to an increase of about $691,000 in general funding, he said.

“That’s really a thing to celebrate, but just keep the reality of FY 2025 going back to 2%,” Caron told school board members.

Caron said cross subsidies and compensatory revenue funding would also help MPS with costs for English Learner education and special education.

Part of Tuesday’s budget discussion also included enrollment data and projections.

“Our student enrollment drives the majority of our revenue,” Caron said. In recent years, MPS saw enrollments drop during the COVID pandemic and then jump back up in the 2021-22 school year.

“This year, we’re going to end with around 2,499 (students),” he said. Caron said school enrollments tended to decline as the school year went on.

MPS was projecting an enrollment of 2,499 again for the 2023-24 school year, with enrollment numbers falling the next two years. Part of that came from having some large class sizes graduating, Caron said.

“As those come through, on the back side we’re getting normal class sizes. Our numbers are going down and that will definitely affect revenue, but if you look at previous years, we’re kind of getting back to where we were pre-COVID,” he said.

Caron said open enrollment numbers for the 2022-23 school year were positive for MPS. The district had 268 students coming to Marshall from other districts, compared to 240 MPS resident students who enrolled in other districts.