The fact is, the Orcas Island School District has pulled itself out of the budget hole it was in last year – it finished the 2006-’07 school year with a zero balance, and is projected to keep its $150,000 or three percent fund reserve at the end of this school year. However, the fact also is, a juggernaut composed of underfunded cost-of-living increases and district increases to state teacher salaries and health benefits coupled with declining enrollment is headed straight for the District, in the amount of $667,000.
This is the projected amount of deficit the district will incur without cuts to its budget. The proposed budget for ’08-’09 will be formulated by district administration and school principals this week and will be on the agenda for a Special School Board meeting on April 30.
The substantial community funds raised by Orcas Island Education Foundation (OIEF) last year cannot be “forecast” into the budget for next year, as they are considered “soft” money that can’t be included into the budget accounting.
So if programming, staffing, administration, transportation, utilities, food, and other non-employee related costs remain the same as this year, the district will wind up $667,000 in the hole.
This is the challenge presented to the board at the April 17 meeting. The surprise element of the size of the deficit was the undercurrent of the evening.
Ben Thomas, Finance Manager for the District, stated that in February, the District received notice that the cost of living allowance would be about 2.8 percent; the actual amount mandated by the State Legislature was 4.4 percent overall and 5.1 percent for certified positions.
Superintendent Glenn Harris said at the beginning of the meeting, “The ‘08 Legislative session’s additional funding has a negative impact on the district’s budget.”
Harris added to his comments after the meeting: “The economy’s down and the state has a very unique and complicated way of funding its schools; when it appears we have additional revenue, the impact of that revenue can be negative. It goes into salary allocation, not into assisting districts. It’s just not as black and white as it seems in the paper,” Harris said.
District board member Charlie Glasser stated for the record, “The State of Washington is requiring, but not funding, measures and once again we are faced with the State saying ‘Do X,’ but we’re not going to give you the money to do X.”
When members of the Board expressed frustration at not having concrete numbers to work with, yet being required to review, adjust and approve the district’s program recommendation (including cuts in programs that will require Reductions in Force (RIFs) by the end of the month, Thomas replied that the State’s revenue model wouldn’t be available until April 20, and Harris said, “Finance managers in all districts are facing the same challenge.”
But, Harris reminded the meeting, “The district has cleaned up so much – in personnel, in timeline, in fiscal services – even with the brutal facts about numbers, the District has done a good job.”
I-728 hearing
The board considered how Initiative 728 funds will be spent in the coming year at a public hearing.
I-728 funding was set up by the voters in 2000 in order to allow the public more input on how educational dollars are spent, specifically for class size reduction, especially on the elementary level, and for professional development. OISD is estimated to receive $211,221 in I-728 funding for ‘08-’09.
While $183,670 of the funds were suggested to go to Resource Allocation (staff funding) and $27,551 was designated for “indirect” costs (to be determined by the district), discussion arose as to whether the “indirect” funds should be adjusted so that more of the I-728 funding went to the teachers.
Board member Scott Lancaster said, “The reality of the picture is this is just a paper shuffle; it’s not going to make any difference in that …. 80 percent of the allocation is for teachers.”
Board member Keith Whitaker said, “The difference is in the statement of intent by the board of where our priorities are.” Glasser agreed with both viewpoints, saying, “It may be a discussion about a moot point,” and then went on to say, “It’s important to indicate our priorities to the public, state and federal government that we’re not happy with the funding process, and anything that says ‘We should do our best to retain our teachers’ we should do.”
After adjourning the public hearing, the board voted to reduce the indirect funds to $7,000 and to move $20,000 into Resource Allocation.
Waldron
school roof
Bids for the Waldron school roofing project came in “significantly above what was budgeted in the district bond,” said Harris, but it is hoped by making some changes to the reconstruction features the cost “can be brought within range.”
Maintenance staffing
The OISD maintenance staff has been reduced by two full-time employees in recent years. The board discussed recommendations to add a full-time or part-time custodian. Harris said, “The recommendation in terms of need is easy … everybody knows we are short on maintenance staff. But given our financial status, we need to weigh things in.”
Board member Keith Whitaker said, “I don’t feel we can add anything, if we’re going to be cutting $667,000,” but Board member Tony Ghazel said maintenance is “a liability to the district; we need to fix this problem somehow.”
Glasser said of the added custodial position: “I’d like to move forward; these doors have to be kept open. It serves the interest of the kids directly. The larger issue – we’re going to be tearing our hair out next week. Relatively speaking, this is nothing.”
Glasser moved to hire a part-time custodial person for four hours a day until the end of the school year at $14,691. Whitaker advised waiting until the Program Recommendation is presented to the board next week, and he and Board President Janet Brownell voted against Glasser’s motion, which was approved by the remainder of the board.
Accounting position
The board then discussed adding an accounting employee to the District’s administrative staff, with three options for hours, time period and salary taken into consideration.
Whitaker suggested tying the approval of such a position until years-end into a prohibition of overtime during that period. “We have to talk about what hard austerity measures we can put into effect immediately.”
Lancaster said that the prospect of gaining accounting help was the rationale for reducing Business Manager Ben Thomas’ hours at the last meeting.
Ghazel said, “With a $667,000 deficit, everyone’s going to be hurt, in every department. What we’re facing now is the first in a series of decisions we’ll have to make.”
Glasser said, “The reality is we’re spending [the wages that would be paid an accounting assistant] now, in overtime.”
The board voted to table the authorization of an accounting position until its next meeting on April 24.
ALE Advisory Board
Brownell suggested that an advisory group be created by the board to look at the district’s Alternative Learning Experience (ALE), which oversees home-based instruction and OASIS High School.
Lancaster said that the biggest problem is that there is no policy for ALE “The people who administer the policy should set the policy.”
He advised that an advisory board have a facilitator at the start of the process. “Two years ago, we ended up with no policy because we had no direction. We need somebody who absolutely knows the rules right from the beginning.”
Brownell argued that a committee could be formed to present their options by the end of the year, and then an advisor could “help us find a policy to do what we want to do.” She argued that a moderator at the beginning of the process would inhibit an advisory group.
The matter will be placed on the agenda for the April 24 meeting, which will be at the school library beginning at 4:30 p.m.
Public school districts
Orcas Island school district is not unique. The San Juan Island School District estimates it will need to reduce its program budget by $820,000 in order to produce a balanced budget for next year. “The district’s funding shortfall is compounded by the state’s failure to fully fund raises and basic education programs [as well as] declining enrollment, special education costs and staffing added this year to meet program and operational needs,” San Juan Superintendent Michael Soltman said in an e-mailed statement.
Dr. Jerry Jenkins, superintendent of Education Service District 189, estimates that the region’s 35 school districts face more than a $28 million shortfall related to underfunded raises.
Estimates by the Washington Association of School Administrators are that school districts in Washington state face a $100 million shortfall this year because of underfunded salary increases by the Legislature and other program reductions passed during the 2008 session.
Dr. Bill Keim, Education Service District 113 superintendent in Olympia, stated in a recent article, “Based on data available through the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1993 Washington ranked 11th in its adjusted per-student expenditure. In 2005, according to data presented in the 2008 Quality Counts report, Washington State had slid to a ranking of 44th with a total per-student expenditure of $7,432. Moving Washington back into the 11th ranked position would require an additional $2,553 per student, or a total of $2.46 billion.”
