BELLE — The Maries County R-2 Board of Education received encouraging financial news during its June 30 meeting as officials reported that the school district is expected to finish the 2025-26 fiscal year with higher revenues and lower expenditures than originally projected.

Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham presented the year-end budget amendment, explaining that final figures were not yet available because the fiscal year had only recently concluded, but preliminary numbers indicate the district is in a stronger financial position than anticipated.

“So we are not when I sent these out, you know, when they weren’t the actual actuals, because we still had a few days to go,” Basham said. “We won’t know the actual actuals for a few more days, but this is kind of where we are. It looks like we’re going to come in with higher than expected revenue and lower than expected expenditures.”

Board members welcomed the update.

“That’s the way to be off,” Board President Kenda Sanders said after Basham presented the preliminary figures.

Basham cautioned that some figures will continue to change as accounting adjustments are made between district funds and the Annual Secretary of the Board Report (ASBR) is submitted to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

“There’ll be some moving around with, you know, a little bit of numbers within those — fund one, fund two, fund four, but as of right now, that’s kind of what it’s looking like,” Basham said. “We won’t know for sure until we put the ASBR into DESE, but we’re looking at, you know, we had a good year.”

Following the discussion, the board approved with a 7-0 vote to amend the 2025-26 budget to reflect the district’s year-end actual revenues and expenditures once finalized.