After working to dig out of a seven year deficit, a Northern Michigan school district is celebrating a budget surplus.
North Central Academy has been under the oversight of the state as it worked to erase a $5 million deficit. But their latest audit has been approved and they’re now debt-free.
North Central Academy Superintendent Brian Lynch has been with the school for 10 years, the last nine as superintendent.
“When I took over we had inherited a massive amount of debt... and we’ve been cleaning it up ever since,” he says. “As of this month we officially graduated from the Treasury Department’s list, and we’re now officially out of deficit.”
North Central Academy in Mancelona is a charter school under the umbrella of Lake Superior State University and in the same district as Bay City Academy downstate. The two schools also share a unified budget, which means both took on the heavy lifting of overcoming their debt.
Lynch says. “these schools were definitely worth fighting for. These kids and staff at both schools were definitely worth fighting for. We knew we had something special here. That it would take a lot of hard work to get out of deficit.”
While they knew the day was coming, Lynch says the positive budget started coming into focus last summer, they just received word from the Treasury Department.
“Even though it wasn’t official we had a good idea of the track we were on. As long as we didn’t blow a boiler or need at $150,000 bus. And at that moment we could kind of sense the excitement that this was coming,” he says.
Tightening the budget and receiving grant money helped with expenses. But believe it or not, so did COVID.
“We worked some difficult business decisions and restructured contracts, grant writing. And we had to get really creative when you don’t have a lot of money,” Lynch says. “We also stayed open during COVID as much as possible. We were the first school in Northern Michigan to open in early August, with COVID. And we gave parents the choice if they wanted to do online or send their kids to school here.”
In fact, from 2020 to 2021, enrollment in the district went up more than 23%. That boosts the bottom line.
“We’re currently over a half million dollars on the positive side of the fund balance. And we’ll add to that,” Lynch says.
From $5 million in debt to now a budget surplus, North Central Academy is looking at ways they can make upgrades and improvements throughout the district.
“We’ve used that money with new curriculum in both schools. We’re building a mountain bike track at North Central Academy as part of our physical education. And we continue to invest in the arts. I don’t know many schools in the entire nation that can say they’ve got a 28-acre mountain bike track. Kids can use their P.E. time. We’re also going to do some summer programs with that too. So we’re generating a lot of buzz with that,” he says.
They’ll also invest in people.
“It is time to celebrate because we always want to invest in staff. Invest in salaries, invest in benefits. We feel like we take care of our people and our staff and our teachers so they can take care of our kids. It’s a pretty common-sense formula.”
