Assistant Superintendent of Business presented the 2025-26 budget at the June 11th board meeting.
The 2026–27 Budget reflects a fiscally responsible, student-centered plan that balances current needs with long-term sustainability, according to Assistant Superintendent of Business Olga Fisher at the Thursday, June 11, 2026 meeting of the Lucerne Valley USD’s Board of Trustees.
“We continue to maintain a strong fiscal position while we strategically plan for any fiscal challenges.”
The Board of Trustees unanimously adopted the budget and accompanying Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) following Ms. Fisher’s presentation. The Board also authorized the District Administration to proceed with the Certificates of Participation (COP) loan payoff plan. The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) accounted for $18.3 million, or 58%, of the District’s General Fund revenues.
“These are the numbers that we put into our LCFF calculator to generate how much revenue is going to come in. We are projecting a 1,200 student count,” Ms. Fisher said.
The school district gets its fund for several sources.
The basic formula Ms. Fisher and her team uses for projected student enrollment is to take the current kindergarten and TK student numbers and hypothetically move them on. “So TKs become kinder, kinder becomes first grade, so on and so forth,” she said. Also assisting in the estimate is looking at the number of incoming TKs and kindergartners along with the current number of graduating high school seniors.
Local revenue accounted for $6.1 million, or 20%, of the District’s revenues. Additional revenues included other state revenue ($5.3 million) and federal revenue ($1.4 million) for a total of $31.2 million in total revenue.
Total projected expenditures for 2026–27 are $30,326,942. Personnel costs — certificated salaries, classified salaries, and employee benefits — collectively represent the largest share of spending, reflecting the District's commitment to its workforce and student-facing staff. Certificated salaries, which includes teachers, is the largest category at $10.2 million, followed by employee benefits at $7.5 million, classified salaries ($4.8 million, services and operations ($4.4 million), other outgo ($2.7 million), and capital outlay ($1.6 million).
The district also continues to invest in Special Education with costs rising from $2.2 million in 2025-26 to $2.4 million in 2026-27. “We want to make sure we're supporting special education and special education costs grow,” she said. “Every district has a contribution but we want to make sure that that is a priority.
An important part of the budget is the district’s decision to pay off its long-standing Certificates of Participation loan for capital improvements. The board voted to retire its 2016 Refunding Certificates of Participation on August 1, 2026. The payoff amount budgeted is $2.6 million, Fisher said.
“The budget was built with the key priorities for our district. It's always about student achievement. We always want to focus and put our funding into that and making sure that we put our students first.”
The school district is projected to be fiscally solvent in the foreseeable future.