Greenfield School District budget looking tight

By Editor | May 6, 2026 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Say what you will, but COVID pumped a lot of money into struggling school districts, but now that money is drying up and those districts are feeling the effects of that money not coming in any more.
“We have predicted the last few years that money was going to be tight as the COVID money dried up,” Greenfield Superintendent Andy Stumpf said after their April school board meeting. “The federal funds and grants have started to go away and while the state money doesn’t stop the extra they give you, which for us is $20,000, doesn’t cover hardly anything.”
So, what the district has been doing, is, as people have been retiring, they have been eliminating positions in order to save money.
“Well, we are to the point now to where we have eliminated 10 instructional positions over the last three years and we are about as minimal a staff as we can possibly get,” Stumpf said. “So if we have to continue with budget reductions in the future, we are looking at having to cut extra-curricular programs or even educational programs. We are just about at minimum staffing.”
The only way to get additional revenue would be an influx of local revenue and since Greene County is tax capped, that isn’t going to happen.
“When we are tax capped, it doesn’t allow us to capture the tax funds that are available to us because it literally caps us so our limiting tax rate continues to go down for educational purposes,” Stumpf said. “So, we may have to try to ask the voters for a limiting rate increase that would allow us to capture some more tax dollars.”
However, that might not happen for a couple of years.
“We don’t want to do that in the next couple of years because we are just now getting these Health, Life, Safety funds to make these upgrades that are happening this summer, so that is not something we would want to do right away,” he said. “But in the near future, if we have to reduce more in order to get back to a balanced budget, that might be something we have to do. If not then we are going to have to eliminate some potential programs – either extracurricular or educational.”
The district is eliminating a cook position by implementing a reduction in force affecting an educational support person.
“Due to low student participation in lunch at the high school, the salad bar will be discontinued,” Stumpf said. “However, warm meals will continue to be delivered to the high school. Next year the salad bar will be available only at the elementary school.”
Stumpf said the salad bar was started when the district started preparing more fresh meals using their own farm stuff.
“Well, the numbers have slowly declined,” he said. “I think the kids are back to where they want to leave campus and eat out for lunch. This year we are probably down to an average of only 50 to 10 a day and we can’t afford to have an employee come over here and set up a salad bar for those few.”
Now, if a student wants a meal they will cook it at the elementary and bring it over and deliver it to them at the high school.
Stumpf advised the board that the district that the lagoon at the FFA farm requires restructuring in order to allow it to be used for pasture. The district has received a quote of $6,400 for the work and a donation of $1,500 has already been secured, with the possibility of additional contributions forthcoming.
Stumpf said the area which is now the FFA farm used to be a hog confinement 30 years ago.
“When it was a hog confinement, they pumped all the hog manure into the lagoon,” he said. “Well, it hasn’t been a hog confinement for over 30 years so the lagoon has just sat there collecting water.”
They drained the lagoon and now they need to prepare it to become fit for the cattle.
“We got a local person to pump it all out and put on a field fertilizer and now we just have to fill it and level it off,” Stumpf said. “We are then going to put a fence around that whole area and pasture it with our cows that we use to help feed our kids beef throughout the year.”
The board tabled the restructuring of the lagoon following their closed session.
Following closed session, the board:
■ Hired Jordan Bowman as Assistant Athletic Director.
■ Hired Kate Merriman as elementary teacher.
■ Hired Lexi Bates as elementary teacher.
■ Hired Breanna Lehr as elementary teacher.
■ Approved 3-year Intent to Retire for Katie Ambuel.
■ Approved Ag 3 Circles Grant for Fiscal Year 2025 for Beth Burrow.
■ Approved the replacement of the internal components for the walk-in freezer at the elementary for $16,850 and HVAC unit for the District Office for $7,825.