1. West Fargo Schools spends most on teachers in North Dakota, keeps admin spending lean
Despite being the second largest school district in North Dakota, West Fargo Public Schools is among the lowest spenders on administration salaries by percentage and is the highest spender on teacher salaries.
In the West Fargo school district, administrative staff includes more positions than those housed at the district office. “Administration” encompasses more than 80 positions including superintendents, principals, assistant superintendents, assistant principals, directors, and coordinators such as a special education coordinator, director of communications or director of human resources.
The Forum analyzed data from West Fargo Public Schools, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction and the U.S. Department of Education to examine administrative spending by the district.
In the 2022-23 school year, West Fargo Public Schools spent about 8.7% of its budget on administration salaries or about $14.4 million. That percentage is down from historic amounts, as West Fargo Schools spent as high as 10.5% on administration salaries in 1993, or about $5.3 million.
“We ranked 165 out of 172 school districts in North Dakota for the percentage of budget spent on the administration,” Business Manager Levi Bachmeier said. “So, we’re one of the lowest-spending districts on administration in the whole state.”
In examining West Fargo’s spending on administration, it appears as though the district overspent its budgeted amount on administrator salaries for 2022-23 by more than $2 million. However, the additional spending occurred after West Fargo Public Schools received a $12 million grant to be paid over five years from the Department of Education to be used for salaries and benefits of mental health support staff such as social workers, counselors and psychologists.
Read more from The Forum’s Wendy Reuer
2. Homelessness at forefront of Minnesota attorney general’s visit to Moorhead
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison speaking at the Bright Sky Apartments in Moorhead on Monday, Dec. 11, 2023.
C.S. Hagen / The Forum
A public forum in Moorhead featuring Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison highlighted issues area residents are dealing with on a daily basis, including homelessness, lack of transportation, isolation, child care, business and hunger.
Ellison, who was the keynote speaker at the forum on “helping Minnesotans live with dignity, safety and economic security,” said part of his department is responsible for enforcing wage laws, making sure that employers pay what they promise, ensuring tenants know their rights and to report potential scammers.
“That’s what we’re here to do, to make sure people get the full protection of the law,” Ellison said Monday, Dec. 11 at Bright Sky Apartments.
After separating into small groups to discuss issues important to them, Ellison, along with area legislators like Rep. Heather Keeler, DFL-Moorhead, Rep. Jim Joy, R-Hawley, and Sen. Rob Kupec, DFL-Moorhead, tried to address concerns, chief among them being homelessness.
Read more from The Forum’s C.S. Hagen
3. North Dakota reaches record child support collections
Parents in North Dakota have paid and received a record high percentage of child support in the current federal fiscal year, according to the state’s child support enforcement division.
Health and Human Services (HHS) said its Child Support Section achieved a record 77.4% collection rate.
HHS Child Support Director James Fleming said that percentage reflects nearly $90 million paid and received by North Dakota parents out of the $116 million of child support due in the last year.
In addition, the statewide amount of unpaid support is at its lowest level since 2015.
North Dakota’s child support collection rate easily surpasses the national average of 64.6% in 2022. Those statistics are tabulated annually by the Office of Child Support Services in the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Historically, North Dakota has consistently ranked within the top five states for child support collection rates.
Fleming said the previous high for North Dakota was over 76% in federal fiscal year 2019, after which time the rate slipped back during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When you have an economic downturn, you see a negative influence on that collection rate, so you’ve got to even work harder to get moving into a positive rate,” he said.
Fleming said the state’s high collection rate is attributed to parents being willing to support their children and the state’s balanced approach.
Read more from The Forum’s Robin Huebner
4. From broken refrigerators to dishwashers, The Appliance Guy aims to keep gadgets humming
Lisa Johnson and Jamie Kinslow, at The Forum on Dec. 1, are the owners of The Appliance Guy, a new Moorhead fixit business that works on things like refrigerators and dishwashers.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Jamie Kinslow is a 30-year veteran of the appliance repair industry.
For most of those years, he did repair jobs working “in the field” for Homemaker’s Villa in Moorhead and for the past four years he was service manager for the Rigel’s appliance store in Moorhead.
In November, Kinslow opened his own business, The Appliance Guy, with his partner, Lisa Johnson.
Running their enterprise means “working for our own dream, instead of someone else’s,” said Johnson, who said Kinslow has a knack for fixing things while also calming the anxiety of customers dealing with the demands of life.
Kinslow said he understands how a non-working appliance can add to someone’s stress load and he said that’s a major reason he started his own repair business.
“People in the community are waiting two or three weeks on service on their appliances and to me that’s simply unacceptable,” said Kinslow.
Read more from The Forums David Olsen
5. Nationwide milk carton shortage impacting Fargo-Moorhead area schools
The Moorhead Area Public Schools Operations Center.
Finn Harrison / WDAY News
A nationwide shortage of milk cartons is impacting schools in the Fargo-Moorhead area.
The shortage involves the physical half-pint containers that hold milk. It is not a shortage of milk itself.
A spokesperson for West Fargo Public Schools said they were informed of the shortage by their milk vendor Cass-Clay in late September and have run out of those milk cartons several times since then.
Representatives for Fargo Public Schools, West Fargo Public Schools, and Moorhead Area Public Schools all said they have at one point offered milk from gallon or half-gallon jugs poured into plastic cups to students during stretches when cartons were unavailable.
Moorhead Area Public School’s Food and Nutrition Services Director Ashley Schneider said this was mainly done with older students.
“We focused more on the high school of doing that because a lot of our students were able to pour it themselves at that point, versus the elementary schools which require much more manpower,” Schneider said.
Read more from WDAY’s Jay Dahl
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