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Iron Mountain School District emerges from debt

IRON MOUNTAIN — After several years of whittling away at its debt, the Iron Mountain School District finally is operating in the black.

An audit showed the district with a $194,180 fund balance at the end of 2018.

This comes after the district had to file a Deficit Elimination Plan with the state when it ended the 2014-2015 school year $584,000 in debt, Superintendent Raphael Rittenhouse said.

“One thing that became a mantra for the district was how much they were in the red,” he said. “What we’ve been doing as a district is really focusing on value, delivering our improvements but doing it in a way that allowed us to address that bottom line for the district.”

The district also has reduced its post-employment retirement benefits liability from $1,844,966 to $600,201, he pointed out.

Rittenhouse credited several factors for the turnaround.

“We stabilized our student population,” he said. “With the original predictions, we beat the odds over the last several years.”

The district’s full-time equivalent, or FTE, student count stands at 802, up from 760 projected for his first year with the district in 2015.

They also reduced spending each year, he said.

“We’ve gone through and just been very conservative in our budgeting. We always think about all of our projections and we’ve just lived within our means,” Rittenhouse said.

Yet the district has continued to focus on its school improvements, such as putting more rigor in the writing program.

“It’s just strong fundamentals that have gotten us where we are,” he said.

He also is proud the district’s North Elementary received an award last year for three years of excellence.

“We continue to have bold initiatives and program outreach and work with things we have locally,” he said.

One of the local partnerships is with the new Our Place Community Center in one of the school’s buildings.

“It’s a space they can have for almost nothing, but it serves the needs of the greater community. It’s for everyone, not just the students in our schools,” Rittenhouse said.

Marguerite Lanthier can be reached at 906-774-3500, ext. 42, or mlanthier@ironmountaindailynews.com.

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