The Austin Public Schools Board approved its preliminary budget for the 2015-16 school year a bit late during its Monday afternoon meeting, thanks to the late business of the Minnesota Legislature.

The board approved a preliminary budget that includes about $57.2 million in revenues and $58.8 million in expenses for the general fund — about a $1.6 million shortfall.

Though the board approved a deficit budget, Director of Finances and Operations Mark Stotts said since there is already money in the fund from the previous year, there are still adequate funds to cover projected costs and cuts aren’t planned.

He went on to say he anticipates the budget numbers will be better once the district’s audit is complete.

“So it’s maybe not as bleak as I’m presenting here, but I’m presenting conservative figures here,” Stotts said. “We’d rather come in better than budget once it’s complete.”

Though this is a preliminary budget, the board is required to approve a budget before June 30, as the year starts July 1. Stotts said he will present another, more revised budget in late January or February, which is what they do every year.

“This is a real preliminary budget,” he said. “We haven’t even sorted through all the legislation that was passed a couple weeks ago. So as we get educated on what the legislature actually did, we’ll revise the budget to reflect that.”

Stotts said the administration is anticipating $7.8 million in the general fund for this year, and by June 30 in 2016 have projected about $6.1 million in the general fund. This helps cover the district if there are anything unanticipated that comes up over the school year.

The Legislature approved a 2 percent increase the general education funding formula, which means the district will receive $5,948 on a per-pupil basis, which is $117 more than the last school year.

Projected enrollment increases will remain almost the same as the past school year, with only a five-student increase.

“Obviously, we’ve had a lot of growth over the last 10 years, and particularly over the last five years, now we’re going to see that growth slow down,” Stotts said.

This means the district won’t see as much increase in revenues as the last 10 years, but Stotts said they are adequately planning for it. Stotts noted the district is not planning nor do administrators foresee any budget cuts or reductions at this time.

There will be two classroom staff positions added this year and one English language learning teacher, and the district is in the process of negotiating employee contracts.

Stotts didn’t have all the details from the state Legislature, and he hoped to get more information on during a meeting later this week. He said many of the revenues won’t be in the budget as of yet since administration doesn’t know all the details from the legislative session yet.

“I guess the biggest thing I want you to take away is we’re in good shape,” Stotts told the board at the meeting. “I wouldn’t say overly strong on our fund balance, it has come down since we opened [I.J. Holton Intermediate School], we knew we were going to spend it down the first two years that Holton was open, but I think we’re in good shape and I think by the time that budget year is done, we’ll have basically broke even.”