St. Louis Public Schools faces nearly $70 million in increased expenses for the 2025-26 school year after the May 16 tornado.
Superintendent Millicent Borishade told the Board of Education that the district expects to recoup much of the money that has been spent on storm damage and debris removal from federal and state agencies during a Tuesday night public work session.
The district will not receive those funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency until sometime in 2026.
SLPS has spent $96,000 on debris cleanup and $1.2 million to stabilize storm-damaged school buildings.
The district also plans to spend $23.5 million in insurance deductibles and $3.7 million in capital assets — which include replacing computers, laptops, playgrounds and other supplies that were in school buildings damaged by the storm.
The district has also baked in 10% in cushion funds as damage assessments proceed.
These additional costs are in addition to the $35 million the district planned to pull from the district fund balance for the 2025-26 school year.
The money will come from the district’s coffers, which hold over $200 million. Borishade acknowledged that the increased expenditures cannot be a long-term strategy for the district.
“It is definitely not sustainable for us to keep doing business the way we're doing it now,” Borishade said.
Some federal funding in limbo
The district is also waiting on some critical federal funding, which makes up about 13% of its overall budget.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education said it was withholding over $6 billion in funding from states across the country.
As of last week, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said the state is still waiting to receive about $64.3 million in grants from the federal government.
The funds support the following programs:
- Title I-C for migrant education.
- Title II-A for teacher and school leader supports.
- Title III-A for English-learner services.
- Title IV-A for student support and academic enrichment.
- Title IV-B for before and after-school programs
- Adult basic education and literacy and civics grants.
The U.S. Education Department notified states on July 18 that it would release $1.3 billion in funding for before and after-school programs. That would be about $19 million for Missouri schools and about $3.5 million for SLPS.
Borishade said the funding is used for before and after care programs in the district, but also Saturday School, a district-wide program to provide struggling students additional instructional time to complete coursework to graduate.
Reactions to school closures report
During the same meeting, school board members got a chance to ask questions and share their concerns about a new report from Cordogan, Clark & Associates that outlines findings of a two-year survey of the district.
The report suggests the district consolidate its 68 buildings down to 31 — closing 27 elementary, five middle and five high schools.
The report did not say which schools should be shut down.
The findings reflect major population changes happening not only in St. Louis but across the country. The report said that the city is projected to lose 7% of its general population and 30% of school-age children over the next decade.
The report also provided an updated cost of maintaining the district’s 68 school buildings to about $1.85 billion after the tornado. The number could grow.
Longtime board member Donna Jones called the report “depressing” and expressed her concern about further harm closing schools could do to the city’s children.
“You [are] talking about closing schools, it’s a very emotional subject for me, because when schools were closed three or four years ago, we still haven’t been able to do anything to replace those buildings for our students and our students deserve the very best,” Jones said.
School board President Karen Collins-Adams cautioned that the report was a first step in a long process of closing schools.
“We need to be able to do things methodically with a lot of community input and consider not just the data, but the emotional impact that it has on everyone while we are doing this,” she said.
Collins-Adams and Vice President Emily Hubbard also pushed back on the inclusion of what happened to school-age children after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Collins-Adams is originally from the city, and Hubbard has family in New Orleans.
“[The city] has profoundly changed. We could not afford to live there now, and I don't want that to happen to St Louis,” Hubbard said. “So it's not a comparison. There have to be tornado events that we can look at.”
The firm’s representatives said they did not highlight the impact of Hurricane Katrina to draw hardline comparisons, but rather to demonstrate what happens to school enrollment after a natural disaster.
Ray Cummings, president of the American Federation of Teachers Local 420, voiced skepticism about why the report was shared at this point in the year when the district is preparing to head back to school.
“I can't even tell you how many people call me and ask me, ’What about my job?’” Cummings said. “I told them, your job is to get ready to meet these students right now, but it demotivates people from focusing on the here and now.”
Borishade defended her decision to present the report now but is considering pushing back the timeline to hold community engagement events around school closures to October to prioritize managing the start of the school year.
The district was scheduled to begin the third phase of the “Reimagining SLPS” sessions for community feedback in September.
“We are excited about Aug. 18 and just looking forward to having everyone back in school to create some routine for our students,” Borishade said.
