Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

As bills swell, funding shrinks for schools

Economics doesn’t get any simpler than this: When expenses rise faster than revenue, something has to give.

As school districts work out budgets for next year, many are being forced to make six- or seven-figure cuts as they cope with rising costs for fuel, salaries and employee benefits. Others also are dealing with falling enrollments and a resulting loss of state money.

Although not universal, the pain is widespread. Among those being forced to make cuts are big Washington districts Spokane, Central Valley and Mead, midsized district West Valley, and small districts Liberty, Ritzville, Medical Lake and Chewelah.

Some North Idaho districts also are cutting, including Lake Pend Oreille and Coeur d’Alene. Others are filling gaps with “override” levies, including some districts that hadn’t previously needed levies to meet general expenses.

Budget cuts can mean small adjustments, like Mead’s elimination of bottled water from some remote classrooms.

But some districts are making more painful cuts, such as Central Valley eliminating the summer school that 154 elementary students attended last year and Chewelah looking at cutting soccer, golf and tennis.

As staff members retire or leave, some districts are leaving their positions vacant. A few are doing that, plus laying off some employees.

In all, Washington’s 296 school districts expect to eliminate about 600 positions, said Jennifer Priddy, assistant superintendent at the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. That estimate is based on anecdotal conversations, not any kind of mandatory reporting system, Priddy said.

Central Valley plans to eliminate the equivalent of 19 full-time certified staff, including teachers. That can be done without layoffs, but cutting classified staff by 58 hours a day “may result in layoffs,” according to a district budget document.

Mead is negotiating with its unions to determine where cuts will be made, although “there will be some layoffs,” said Wayne Leonard, district director for business services.

Ritzville School District is laying off three classroom aides, the equivalent of two full-time employees. “We were fortunate in that we had two teachers retire and one taking a partial leave of absence,” preventing further layoffs, said Superintendent Dwight Remick.

Medical Lake School District has made cuts for three or four years without laying off anyone. Now, even with some positions eliminated through attrition, the district is laying off a school psychologist and cutting hours for three other certified employees.

“It’s painful,” said Don Johnson, Medical Lake director of financial services.

Lake Pend Oreille will have 22 fewer teachers next year, two fewer administrators and 14 fewer support workers. The district, which includes Sandpoint, had to cut $1.8 million from its budget, said business manager Lisa Hals.

“For the first time, we offered an early retirement buyout for teachers” and got nine takers, Hals said.

Coeur d’Alene is looking to save about $640,000 through staff reductions – part of about $2.5 million in total cuts.

As for Eastern Washington’s largest school district, Spokane Public Schools’ superintendent today will present a recommended budget to the school board calling for about $1.5 million in cuts. It eliminates about 20 teaching positions, but without layoffs.

Already this decade, the district has cut $41.3 million. To cut $10.8 million last year, the district laid off some employees and closed an elementary school, among other things.

No kids, few kids

The two states allocate money for districts based primarily on the number of kids who walk through school doors. The figure varies a bit depending on a number of factors, but each Washington student brings about $5,200 to his or her district; Idaho’s figure is in the ballpark, but also varies, depending on whether a school is rural or urban, among other factors.

When enrollment drops, schools lose money, without corresponding cuts in expenses.

“You can’t say, ‘Now we’ll eliminate one classroom of first-graders and one classroom of fifth-graders,’ ” because the loss of students is usually spread across all grades, said Marcus Morgan, superintendent of Chewelah School District.

The causes of enrollment declines vary.

Chewelah lost 67 kids during the school year that just ended, and Morgan expects 50 fewer students next year. He blames that partly on the poor rural economy.

Despite North Idaho’s growth, Lake Pend Oreille has lost 300 students in three years and expects to lose 100 more next year. Enrollment is flat at Rathdrum-based Lakeland School District, where voters this year passed a two-year override levy that will pay $1.9 million a year – the district’s first.

“The houses being built have no kids or few kids,” said Lakeland business manager Tom Taggart. “We’re seeing 60-year-old couples moving in” while some families with children move away, to areas with lower rents or shorter commutes.

Ritzville expects 30 fewer students next school year, a loss that represents nearly 10 percent of its enrollment. Liberty School District administrators think they’ve hit the bottom of a 10-year enrollment decline. Both districts attribute their losses partly to the declining number of farmworkers.

Medical Lake has lost students nine of the past 10 years, partly because of housing changes at Fairchild Air Force Base. The district predicts a loss of 20 students next year, representing more than $100,000 of its $600,000 budget hole.

So far this decade, Spokane’s enrollment has dropped by 2,400 students, partly from people moving to suburbs. The anticipated loss of 375 students next school year translates to nearly $2 million – more than the budget gap the district is trying to fill.

The hits keep coming

Shrinking enrollments have been a story for years. Now “you’re starting to see a lot of districts struggle, even when their enrollment is growing,” Mead’s Leonard said.

Mead continues to grow but must cut $1.7 million from its budget. Central Valley is growing but must cut $1.5 million. West Valley is growing but must cut $300,000.

Other districts are in similar straits, and school administrators point to a number of reasons:

Fuel costs. Every penny increase in the cost of diesel means an additional $100,000 in annual spending by all state school districts combined, said Priddy, of the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. And in the past nine months, diesel has gone up nearly $2 a gallon.

By June, Mead School District was paying $10,000 more each week for fuel than in September, Leonard said. And the sprawling Lake Pend Oreille district has budgeted an extra $100,000 for fuel next year.

Liberty has budgeted an additional $40,000 to bus its 500 students. That’s nearly enough to hire a teacher to replace one who’s leaving, said Superintendent Bill Motsenbocker.

Instead, the position will remain vacant.

Higher salaries and costlier benefits. The Washington Legislature this year approved a 4.4 percent cost-of-living increase but only funded it for the number of employees the state believes each district should have, based on a formula school officials say is outmoded.

Few districts – Newport and Deer Park among them – come close to the state formula.

Medical Lake, for instance, has 31 percent more certified staff (including teachers) than the state says it needs, and 128 percent more classified staff, including bus drivers and secretaries.

Cutting back to follow state guidelines would mean significantly larger classes “at the same time we’re trying to meet all the state (academic) requirements,” such as getting kids through the WASL, said Johnson, at Medical Lake.

“It’s good news to the employees when we have a cost-of-living increase, but it’s a hit for the district,” Johnson said.

Districts are paying a greater share of pension costs, too, partly because of state investment losses when technology businesses went bust.

In Idaho, at least, there was some good news about health benefits. The Lake Pend Oreille district had predicted a 15 percent increase in cost; instead it was 1.2 percent.

“That was phenomenal news,” Hals said.

Unfunded mandates. It’s a longtime complaint of districts that legislatures don’t fully fund the things they require. Those mandates include the cost-of-living increase and English classes for those who are learning it as a second language.

Associate Superintendent Mark Anderson says those English classes cost Spokane Public Schools almost $2 million more than the state provides.

Several Washington districts are suing to get much more money for special education – an additional $6 million a year in Spokane’s case.

Then there are things that aren’t required but cannot be omitted without causing drops in test scores, further enrollment declines, loss of levy support and other problems. Among them: six-period days, band, art and programs for gifted students.

“The state doesn’t fund athletics and that’s a pretty important part of the school experience,” said Johnson.

A 14-member state task force is looking at the way the state funds education. The group, formed last year, is supposed to provide the Washington Legislature with options for a new funding structure late this year.

School administrators hope it addresses the issue of underfunded necessities.

“If they would just fund special education and transportation, that would save Mead School District almost $3 million,” Leonard said.