An executive at a Forest Lake charter school was fired last month for allegedly falsifying documents.

North Lakes Academy Executive Director Cecelia Dodge was fired following a closed session of the school board, allegedly “due to the falsifications of applications for federal funds due to forging signatures of employees and insufficient enrollment,” school board officials said at the November meeting.

The charter school received a complaint about Dodge on Oct. 30, conducted an investigation of the allegations and, on Nov. 17, “the board voted unanimously to terminate her employment,” said Board Chair Morgan Borck in an email.

No details were given regarding which documents were allegedly falsified. Dodge stepped into the executive director role in October 2023.

Founded in 1999, North Lakes Academy is a K-12 charter school with two Forest Lake campuses. In partnership with its authorizer, Osprey Wilds, the academy emphasizes environmental learning, according to its website.

Financial challenges

Dodge’s dismissal comes as the public school is facing financial challenges.

“I have become increasingly concerned with the long-term viability of North Lakes Academy,” wrote Andrew Clark, managing director and research analyst for Nuveen Asset Management, which owns a majority of the charter’s outstanding bonds.

“The current budgeted loss of over $600,000 for FY26 (fiscal year 2026) is particularly concerning considering that level of deficit spending could leave the school insolvent by the end of the year,” Clark said in the October letter addressed to Dodge and Borck.

“Re-growing enrollment is imperative to the school’s long-term success,” Clark wrote.

The charter school, which opened its K-6 campus in 2019, tallied its highest enrollment of 607 students in the 2022-23 school year “and it’s been dropping each year since,” the school board said in its response to Clark.

As of last month, North Lakes Academy had just over 400 students enrolled. The charter expects its enrollment to grow to 430 students by fiscal year 2027, according to school board documents.

Merging of schools

In addition to enrollment efforts, the charter is considering merging its two campuses.

The potential merging of the two schools, a proposal called “Huskies United Under One Roof,” suggests vacating the charter’s 7-12 campus at 308 15th St. SW. before the 2026-27 school year.

Should the two campuses merge into the current K-6 building at 4576 232nd St. N., elementary-aged students would remain on the main floor with the secondary students on the second floor.

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With 12 classrooms and about 300 students on the main floor, class sizes would average about 25 pupils. On the second floor, there are 16 classrooms for roughly 500 students, which would mean average class sizes of 32 students, according to school board documents.

“A bold move like this gives us our best chance, and a very good chance to regroup from our financial challenges to become solvent and viable,” the school said in its proposal.

If the charter were to merge its upper and lower schools, it could save roughly $350,000 across staff, administration and operational costs, not including the lease price of a second building, according to the school board.

“If a change is not made, I fear that the school could close, and our investors would have to look to selling the real estate to recover as much of our investment as possible,” Clark wrote in October.

By Jarrell Dillard, Bloomberg News

This year was a difficult one for Americans looking for work. Forecasters don’t see much improvement in their prospects coming in 2026.

The unemployment rate is set to remain elevated through almost all of next year despite solid economic growth, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That unusual combination owes to the growing role of investments in artificial intelligence in powering the expansion without boosting hiring, some say.

A stagnant labor market likely means another year of limited job opportunities and cooling wage increases, exacerbating affordability concerns for American families heading into the midterm elections. It also spells an even greater reliance on the health-care sector, which accounted for nearly all job growth in 2025.

“A lot of the GDP growth we’re getting is from AI infrastructure investments, which don’t generate very many jobs, and there’s some displacement from AI,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG. “We don’t know how much that is yet. It looks like it’s only the beginning phases of it.”

While economists say the U.S. isn’t in a recession, the second half of 2025 probably felt like it for many job-seekers. In the five months from June to November, the unemployment rate rose half a percentage point, to 4.6% — a rare development outside of business-cycle downturns.

Those with four-year college degrees were hit particularly hard, reflecting an ongoing hiring freeze across so-called white-collar occupations. While their unemployment rate remains somewhat below that for lesser-educated workers, young college graduates have seen their historical advantage in the job search disappear this year.

Hiring rates, meanwhile, looked even worse — low enough that, in decades past, they would have been consistent with even higher levels of unemployment. And layoff announcements have picked up in recent months, adding to Americans’ malaise about the job market.

Workers outside of health care, in particular, have had a difficult go of it: Excluding that sector, nonfarm payroll employment actually fell in the first 11 months of 2025.

There are some positives for the outlook. The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates this year and is expected to continue doing so in 2026, and tax cuts alongside some potential easing in the Trump administration’s trade policies — a major source of uncertainty for small businesses this year — should also help, said Michael Pugliese, a senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co.

But first, there is “probably still a little more labor-market weakening to go, whether that’s another tick or two higher in the unemployment rate,” Pugliese said.

All of that has already added up to slower wage growth as the balance of power in the labor market has continued to shift from workers to employers. It’s a sharp turnaround from 2022 and 2023, when workers had the upper hand and employers were forced to offer higher pay to attract talent.

A Harris Poll conducted for Bloomberg News in October showed 55% of employed Americans were concerned about losing their jobs, and nearly half said they thought it would take at least four months to find a new job of similar quality if they lost their current position.

Various measures of wage growth show pay is now rising at the slowest rate in four years, and low-earners are seeing pay rise by less than top earners — worsening the so-called “K-shaped economy” trend of widening inequality this year.

That’s a risk for Republicans, who were elected to majorities last year in part due to widespread anger over rising prices that exacerbated cost-of-living concerns, as they head into the 2026 campaign season.

“Overall wage growth will likely come close to the pace of inflation, and likely maybe even go a little above overall inflation,” KPMG’s Swonk said. “But the problem is the distribution of wages.”

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Black unemployment

Inequality is also increasingly noticeable in who is being hired in the first place. Black Americans have seen their unemployment rate shoot higher over the last several months — to 8.3% in November, from 6% in May — and the ratio of Black to white unemployment now matches the highest level since 2019.

While some of that increase reflects more Black Americans joining the labor force, Black workers historically have been disproportionately impacted whenever the U.S. job market loses steam. The Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce, where Black workers are overrepresented, has only added to the difficulties they’ve faced in an already-challenging employment landscape this year.

Michelle Holder, an economist who studies labor-market outcomes for Black Americans, said there is a risk Black unemployment continues to trend higher in 2026.

“Even if the overall unemployment rate continues to revolve around the same 4.6% level, trends are pointing that the fallout of a stagnant economy is increasingly falling more and more heavily on the shoulders of Black workers,” Holder said.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg said they expect gross domestic product to grow 2% in 2026, powered by solid consumer spending and strong business investment. Yet hiring is set to remain muted as in 2025, and the unemployment rate will be higher on average next year than this year, according to the median estimate.

While respondents said they anticipate the unemployment rate could fall slightly by the end of 2026, Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup Inc., warned the risks are “skewed toward worse outcomes” if hiring fails to pick up.

“This has been a very prolonged period of such low hiring that until that changes, you would be worried that the next step would be larger layoffs,” Clark said.

(With assistance from Dana Morgan.)

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Alarmed by “staggering” increases in cryptocurrency scams, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office has released an online survey asking users to weigh in on how and why they access cryptocurrency ATMs. The machines, which can be found with increasing frequency in supermarkets and convenience stores, allow users to make cash deposits into accounts and have their dollars converted to Bitcoin.

The attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division is conducting an investigation into cryptocurrency ATMs, and St. Paul and Stillwater banned the machines outright this year in light of growing concerns. The Attorney General for the District of Columbia recently filed a lawsuit against Athena Bitcoin, a major crypto ATM operator, alleging that 93% of deposits to the company’s crypto ATMs were scam-related.

Ellison’s office said it has also received dozens of reports over the years from scam victims who sent money to fraudulent accounts after being misled. Scammers tend to prey on vulnerable seniors by claiming they owe back taxes and must pay them off immediately using the machines or face immediate consequences from law enforcement, such as a visit from the FBI.

Federal Trade Commission data show losses at cryptocurrency ATMs nationwide growing from a reported $12 million in 2020 to $250 million in the first half of this year alone, according to Ellison’s office. The median reported loss was $10,000. The transactions, according to authorities, are difficult if not impossible to trace.

The attorney general’s survey is at ag.state.mn.us/Survey/Bitcoin-ATM. It asks crypto ATM users which company’s machines they’ve accessed, whether someone told them to use a crypto ATM, whether they lost money, and more. A survey was also emailed directly to some consumers of a leading ATM brand.

Ellison is encouraging victims to contact their local law enforcement and the Minnesota Department of Commerce, as well as his office.

Pioneer Press staffers who cover the Vikings take a stab at predicting the outcome of tonight’s game against the Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Dane Mizutani

Lions 31, Vikings 27: Max Brosmer will look much better than he did in the first start of his career. It won’t be enough to overcome an opponent fighting for its playoff life.

Jace Frederick

Vikings 27, Lions 24: The Lions just suffered a devastating defeat that likely ended their playoff hopes. Recovering from that on a short week is no easy feat.

John Shipley

Lions 19, Vikings 13: Max Brosmer got the Vikings past the Giants last weekend, but the Lions are still playing for something, albeit unlikely, and Detroit will do everything it can to rattle the rookie QB.

Charley Walters

Lions 21, Vikings 10: So, the Vikings’ season comes down to two nondescript games against the Lions and Packers. Sad, really.

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