Mead schools face cash shortfall
The Mead School District is facing a budget shortfall even as enrollment goes up because of rising fuel prices and higher than anticipated cost-of-living increases mandated by the Legislature.
And it is not alone. Nearly every school district in the county is facing budget cuts, though most are hoping to avoid layoffs.
“We are struggling just like everyone else with the issue,” said Wayne Leonard, executive director of business services. “We’re estimating that we have to come up with $1.9 to $2.2 million.”
Every year the Legislature decides what the cost of living increase will be for teachers and classified staff. This year it was set at 4.4 percent, and teachers must get an additional 0.7 percent raise. Retirement and health care costs also went up. The state funds teacher and classified positions based on student enrollment and only provides additional money for raises for those positions. Nearly every district, however, hires additional staff that is paid entirely out of their own budget.
Mead has 95 teaching positions over the state funding formula and 142 additional classified positions. Classified staff includes custodians, lunchroom staff and other noncertificated positions.
“We’re looking at reductions in staffing,” Leonard said. “We’re hoping to get as much as possible through attrition and leave. We’ve had budget crunches in the past and we haven’t had to lay off staff.”
In previous years the district cut equipment and programs. That money largely hasn’t been replaced. “There’s a limit to how much you can cut those budgets,” he said. “We’ve managed over the years because of our growth to cover some of these unfunded things,” he said. “It’s just getting to the point where we can no longer do that.”
The district will likely not have to lay off any teachers, but may have to lay off classified staff. It hasn’t yet been decided what types of positions would be cut. “We’re looking at everything right now,” he said. “We’re not singling out any group. I don’t know that we’ll be able to confine it to any one group.”
But in the end Leonard cites the rapidly increasing fuel costs as the district’s largest problem. Usually the district spends under $400,000 for fuel. This year it will spend about $600,000. Diesel that cost $2.80 a gallon in September is now $4.10 a gallon. “We’re probably going to have to budget $700,000 for next year,” he said. “Transportation is one area that’s really killing us.”
The district hopes to determine as soon as possible what positions will go dark. Parents will see changes, but the district will try to minimize the impact on kids. “It’s not going to be fun,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to outgrow this. The state funding is just not keeping up. We’re just going to have to adjust.”
Spokane Public Schools is expecting a similar shortfall to the tune of $2.2 million. The district has had to make cuts totaling $41.3 million since 2002. In the past administrators, teachers and classified staff have been cut and the savings account tapped. For the 2008-2009 school year it is anticipated that student enrollment will drop another 394.
“Our target is to reduce our staff equivalent to our enrollments with retirements and resignations,” said Mark Anderson, associate superintendent for support services. “We’re not going to be making big dramatic cuts, because we’ve already been making those. We won’t have any teacher layoffs, we don’t think.”
There will likely be layoffs in some programs that are losing their grant funding, but that’s something that always happens, Anderson said. An example this year is the loss of the Safe Schools grant that pays for drug and alcohol counselors as well as the after school programs at the middle schools. “We’ve been working hard at finding some other grants,” he said.
District 81 pays for 100 teachers and 200 classified positions above the state funding formula, which also doesn’t include 315 teachers and 186 classified positions in the special education program.
High fuel prices are also a problem even though the district contracts with First Student for busing. It has to pay everything above the fuel price specified in the contract. “We’ve been paying it,” he said. “(The state) is supposed to fully fund getting kids to and from school. We spend $2 million out of our levy that they don’t fund. We run a very economically efficient bus program. Fuel prices are really hitting all of us.”
The district hasn’t finalized what will be cut. Community forums are scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at Chase Middle School, 4747 E. 37th Ave., and 7 p.m. Wednesday at Glover Middle School, 2404 W. Longfellow Ave. The public is invited to give input on what sort of reductions the district should make.
Small school districts that don’t fund many positions over the state’s funding formula are feeling less of a pinch when it comes to covering the cost of living increases, but still face the fuel and food costs hurdles. The Deer Park School District is not anticipating a budget shortfall, said Superintendent Mick Miller. “We’re in pretty good shape. Our enrollment is pretty steady. We’ve grown in the last few years,” he said.
Deer Park also doesn’t fund any teaching positions over the state funding formula, though it does pay for extra classified staff. “We should be OK,” Miller said.
The Nine Mile Falls School District will take a budget hit, but the exact dollar amount isn’t known yet, said Superintendent Bridge Lewis. “There’s always a shortage,” she said. “That goes without saying until the state fixes the funding formula.”
The district is still analyzing preliminary budget numbers. “We’re expecting stable enrollment,” she said. “We don’t at this point forsee major cuts happening. We know we’re going to take a hit there, but we think we’re going to be able to manage that without making cuts.”