Every year, the Callaway school board holds a public hearing to inform the district’s taxpayers of the proposed budget and tax asking for the next year. What isn’t typical is for more than 100 people to attend that hearing. Yet that is exactly what happened last week.

Anticipating a larger-than-usual crowd for the public hearing on Sept. 2, Callaway Public Schools administration had arranged to host the meeting in the gym rather than the usual meeting space of the library. It’s a good thing they did, as the bleachers nearly filled in for the start of the meeting.

However, the first order of business prior to discussing the budget was the resignation of board member Liana Hrupek. Her seat was up for re-election this fall, and Hrupek had already made the decision not to file for another term. Board President Jim Phelps read the letter of resignation to the board announcing Hrupek’s intention to step down immediately, citing what she called a lack of respect from other board members as a primary factor in her decision. The meeting proceeded with the other five members present: Phelps, T.R. Anderson, Rebecca Eggleston, Rhonda Pandorf, and Mike Reiff.

The budget discussion began with a presentation from Superintendent J.D. Furrow, who gave a detailed overview of the district’s financial picture from the 2017-18 school year to the present. The information included district revenue, tax and revenue growth, and changes in major expenses for each of those school years, along with an explanation of what may have led to those figures.

Furrow explained that legislation requires school districts that wish to raise their taxes more than two percent plus real growth must present their request at a county meeting, referred to as a “pink postcard meeting”. CPS did have to do that last year, and while there were several district patrons present at that meeting in Broken Bow, Furrow said it really was not a good cross-section representation of the constituents.

“So that is really what this meeting tonight is all about. This is our own pink postcard meeting. You will get to hear from board members and myself, and you will get a chance to speak and give your opinions,” Furrow explained.

Before going through the financial history of the district, Furrow discussed what most of the people in the room were there to hear - the tax levy. He began by comparing the property valuations from the 2025-26 school year to the 2026-27 year. Valuations in Custer County, which is the bulk of the land in the Callaway school district, went from $520,403,550 to $585,065,400 - a growth of 12.4 percent. Dawson County property went from $8,355,368 to $10,136,832 - a growth of 21.3 percent.

“That is a significant increase, and has not happened here in a long, long time,” said Furrow.

Combined, the district is now at just over $595 million in assessed value. “So what does that mean to you as a taxpayer? Basically, you can move that decimal over, and we will get $59,520 for every penny that we levy,” Furrow explained.

Last year the district set the property tax asking at $3.6 million, which Furrow said means that this year they can request $3.8 million with a majority vote. With a supermajority vote, which is 70 percent of board members, they can set a tax request authority of $4.1 million.

Furrow also broke down the cost per student at Callaway Public School compared to other districts in our area, some larger and some smaller than CPS. The cost per student at CPS breaks down to $35,972. The only school in Custer County with a higher cost per student is Sargent.

“Enrollment numbers have a lot to do with that. When your enrollment goes down and you are still spending the same amount to educate your children, then there’s more per child. Our enrollment numbers last year were 169, and if you go back four years we were in the mid 190s,” said Furrow.

What it comes down to is, the board has two options before them for the tax request and levy. “The first option that we are considering tonight is that we do not go to the pink postcard hearing and that we adhere to the limit of two percent, plus our real growth this year is .08. So we can tax a total of $3,759,022 and not go to the pink postcard hearing,” Furrow explained. “The other option is to go as high as we can without having to go to a supermajority vote, so 4.72 percent. With that, we can tax $3,864,489. So when you look at the options tonight and what we’re visiting about, you’re really talking about $110,000.”

“Anytime you face something scary, it is human nature to conjure the very worst-case scenario and allow it to spin in your head until that’s the only logical conclusion,” he continued. “We are in a tough financial situation and we do have some tough decisions to make, and we need to dig ourselves out of a hole. That just is what it is. A lot of the rhetoric that I hope we dispel tonight is the doomsday scenarios. We are not in a place where it’s time to close the school. We do not have to consolidate with anyone. There are and will be cuts in how we spend our money.”

Furrow then took the large group in attendance and the board through the district revenue figures, tax and revenue growth comparisons, and expenses for the past decade. He also presented projected revenue and expenses for the 2026-27 school year. Naturally, the major expense facing the district is salaries, which have seen some significant increases in the past few years.

Starting the 2022-23 school year an elementary principal was added to the staff, which raised the principal expenditure from $86,000 the previous year to $161,000. In 2026-27, that figure will be $188,379.45. The superintendent's salary will remain the same for 2026-27 as 2025-26, $145,000. Another increase came in the area of the student nurse, which rose from $53,710 in 2022-23 to $83,000 in 2024-25 and is set at $87,037 in 2026-27.

The projection figures for tax option 1 with the 2.08 percent tax increase limit would leave the district at a deficit of about $24,600. With option 2, which would require the pink postcard hearing at 4.7 percent, Furrow said that at the end of the year the district should be storing almost $64,000 more than what it started the year with.

“I’m willing to do the hard things for us to get ourselves on track, and I’m pretty confident that our board and our staff are willing to do it with me. But we can’t do that alone,” said Furrow.

Following Furrow’s presentation and some comments from Board President Phelps, the microphone was turned over to members of the public who had signed up prior to the meeting to share their thoughts, questions, or concerns. Six of the nine who had signed up opted to speak, one of whom was Randy Kimball.

“Why is the superintendent not the grade school principal?” Kimball began. “It’s always been that way. We added a position, and that’s probably about $70,000. I don’t know what we are going to do without a maintenance man, but maybe we’ll be fine.”

Following the public comments, the board split up into pairs in separate areas of the building to allow conversations with the patrons. When the meeting reconvened in the gym, Phelps requested an informal straw poll of the audience in an attempt to gauge which of the tax options the majority of the patrons support. The result was almost evenly split. Phelps then asked each board member to share their preferred option and all but one chose option 2.

After a two-hour meeting, Furrow was instructed to proceed with Option 2 (4.72 percent revenue increase). This month’s regular board meeting will be held Sept. 14 at 8 p.m.