Budget task force eyes a $4 million cut

Reductions and cuts, two words school districts don’t want to hear, let alone execute, are the focus of the Stanwood-Camano School District’s budget task force.

The 43-member group, comprised of district administrators, staff, union representatives and community members, has formed under the guidance of Superintendent Jean Shumate, Ed.D., to analyze information and develop a draft for next school year’s budget.

“The goal is to have a collaborative process,” said Shumate. “Considering the depth of potential reductions, I wanted to find a way to involve more people.”

Shumate hopes the “balance of people” involved will form a better plan than budget advisory committees used in past years.

To ground the task force, Gary Platt, executive director for business services, broke down the numbers last Monday regarding projected enrollment, potential reductions in funding and increases in expenditures.

Using birth records in Island and Snohomish counties, the district estimates how many children will enter kindergarten in 2010. The next step is to plug that number into a “cohort enrollment projection” graph, developed by historical data of students entering or leaving the district at each grade level using a threeyear average, to determine future cohort numbers in the elementary, middle and high school grades. A final step is taken to break down the total for the 2010-11 school year between individual grades and schools throughout the district.

Because the number of students in the district determines state funding and allocations for staffing, pinpointing the projected enrollment is crucial to determining the budget. As it stands, the projected full-time enrollment for next year is 4,720 students.

Enrollment at the start of the 2009-10 school year was 4,879.

Next year’s enrollment number, said Platt, mimics the historical slide of students in the district.

The board of directors needs to approve the projected enrollment number prior to its use for budget consideration; however, Platt doesn’t expect drastic changes.

Part of the challenges facing the budget task force is allocating staff in the face of reduced funding for students in kindergarten through fourth grade under Governor Christine Gregoire’s pre-session legislative budget proposal last month.

With the elimination of funding for the highly capable program, and reductions to enhanced staffing for K-4, the school district could see a hit of nearly $700,000. Combined with the loss of federal stimulus funds (more than $1.6 million) and a reduction of approximately $762,000 due to a drop in enrollment, the task force has some work to do.

On a positive note, said Platt, levy funding for the maintenance and operations department will return more than $435,000 into the estimated revenue sources.

Estimated expenditures also need to be considered.

Depending on a potential increase in the employer retirement contribution rate (a deficit of $609,000), an increase in expenditures could extend beyond $1.3 million. Other contributing factors are contractual agreements with staff and the reinstatement of budget cuts in maintenance and transportation.

In a nutshell, the net revenue decrease is estimated at $2,627,015, however, when factoring in expenditure increases, the potential budget reduction could range from $3.4 million on the low end, to $4 million on the high end, said Platt.

Translated, it could mean the elimination of 23 fulltime certified staff positions.

“No decisions have been made on reductions at all,” said Shumate.

The information helps to create a clear picture for the budget task force to begin analysis and discussions under guidelines set forth by the school board.

The purpose of the task force, according to materials presented by Shumate, is to review the entire budget, report the findings, prioritize a list of suggested reductions or increases in fee revenues and assist with scheduled school and community meetings.

In doing so, the role of the task force is to foster communication, generate ideas and pass along information to assist school board directors in their deliberations.

Members of the task force signed up for five subgroups to tackle the project. The subgroups are: certified and classified staffing; athletics and activities; operations, transportation, food service and technology; administrative staffing; and, curriculum, special education and alternative programs.

Shumate said the groups will create and prioritize a list of suggested reductions within their focus to be presented to the task force as a whole.

In addition to scheduled task force meetings in January and February, community meetings will take place in the administration and resource center board room on March 1 and at Utsalady Elementary on March 15. An online survey for citizens will also be available throughout the process, said Shumate.

The task force will reconvene for two final meetings in April prior to the presentation of the reduced educational plan to the board in May.

Staff Reporter Adam Stewart: 629-8066 ext. 115 or astewart@scnews.com.