With various deadlines coming up quickly, Northshore School District officials anxiously have been waiting on biennial budget decisions in Olympia.
Those decisions haven’t arrived completely, but like leaders at some other Northshore institutions, school officials are pulling what they can from recently completed state Senate and state House budgets.
And just like those at other local public enterprises, school administrators aren’t liking what they see so far.
“Since the release of the governor’s budget proposal in December,” said Northshore Superintendent Larry Francois, “we have all witnessed the further deterioration of the economy.”
According to Francois, the state budget deficit for the next two years is now estimated at over $9 billion. Francois said with all that in mind, he expected the legislative budgets to hold even deeper cuts than those proposed by the governor’s office.
“Unfortunately,” Francois added, “that is the case.”
Of the House and Senate budgets, information released by the district indicates the House budget contains about $350 million more in funding for K-12 education than the Senate document. Neither contains any cost-of-living increase for school employees, and both include what Francois termed significant cuts in Initiative 728 dollars.
According to district Public Information Officer Susan Stoltzfus, I-728 dollars, approved by voters, primarily are aimed at reducing class sizes. For Northshore, current year I-728 dollars equal $8.7 million. Francois said the district could see anywhere from a 60 percent to 93 percent reduction in that funding. Stoltzfus said the numbers are roughly the equivalent of 73 teacher salaries.
“It’s a pretty direct equation,” she added. “We don’t want to lay off teachers. That’s our goal.”
Stoltzfus said the district normally needs to replace about 100 instructors lost through normal attrition — including retirements and resignations — every year. She added the attrition could make layoffs unnecessary, but it would appear the district would still be down a certain number of teachers.
All in all, Francois said the Senate spending plan would require local budget cuts of $6.9 million in 2009-10, while the House proposal would mean expenditure reductions of $5.9 million over the same time period. He added the district administration will move forward assuming that the final state budget will fall somewhere between the House and Senate proposals.
The two sides of the legislature should work out a compromise budget sometime in the next few weeks. Naturally, the governor’s office has the final say. Stoltzfus said the district may not be able to wait to act until final numbers emerge from Olympia. For one thing, by contract, the district must inform teachers of any layoffs or changes in assignments by May 15. With that in mind, Stoltzfus said district administrators may have a spending plan to present to the school district board of directors very shortly.
The board last met April 14, after the Reporter deadline for this issue.
Stoltzfus didn’t want to give details on any spending reduction.
“It crosses all grades, all programs … the impact will be spread out as much as possible,” she said.
Stoltzfus added administrators also are trying to follow the wishes of employees and residents as expressed in a recent budget-related survey. By a decent margin, respondents to the online questionnaire rated keeping limits on class size as the main issue on their minds. Maintaining the district’s instructional materials came in second.
At the time the district released the results, Francois said he agreed with those rankings, stating he also would place support of professional development high on his list of priorities.
“The No. 1 indicator of student development is the quality of teachers in the classroom,” Francois said.
Stoltzfus said as news of possible layoffs and cuts begins to spread throughout the district, many people are asking if recently authorized federal stimulus money might come to the district’s rescue. The answer appears to be a definite “maybe.” Stoltzfus said the legislature took stimulus dollars into account in preparing its spending proposals. She said at this point, it’s impossible to tell how much, if any, stimulus money might make it directly into district coffers.
