School board reviews bare bones budget

La Conner School Board President Susie Deyo called the panel’s annual six-hour retreat last Wednesday an opportunity for reflection.

It was also a time to look ahead.

And while the view going forward can be murky at best, board members and school officials – like their peers in districts across the state – anticipate seeing an upcoming academic year fraught with tough fiscal challenges.

Finance Director David Cram, just four months into his second tour with the district, outlined a proposed budget designed to salvage a $110,000 fund balance in 14 months.

But accomplishing that goal, which falls well short of the board’s policy of maintaining 10 per cent of the annual budget, has necessitated painful staff and program cuts.

Cram projects revenues of $12,750,000 and expenditures of $12,550,000 in 2023-24.

“This is the tightest budget I’ve been involved with,” said Cram, finance chief with the 10,000-student Marysville School District before circling back to his alma mater.

“You won’t be seeing anything in there that’s fluff,” Cram assured the board while cautioning them to brace for a couple hard years before the district completely rebounds.

Questioned by board members, Cram said his analysis indicates primary causes for the financial crunch have been declining student enrollment and overstaffing. He said the district expects 490 full-time K-12 students in 2023-2024, down from a population in the 600 range when the COVID-19 pandemic hit during the 2019-2020 school year.

“The FTE (full-time enrollment),” Cram determined, “has been chipping away at the fund balance for years.”

La Conner, now a 2B campus, was classified 1A with nearly 700 students in the early 2000s.

Enrollment is the main driver of state funding support of school districts. Administrators have noted that enrollment has dipped in school districts statewide since the onset of COVID-19. Nationally, student enrollment has dropped by more than two million students in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Staffing through the 2022-23 school year remained pretty much status quo in part due to optimistic budget numbers presented last summer. Those forecasts proved overly rosy.

“We did not see these numbers last year,” Deyo lamented, alluding to Cram’s projections. “We weren’t presented with these numbers.”

The district benefited last year from a state allocation of over $800,000 in mascot and logo replacement funds tied to legislation crafted by Rep. Debra Lekanoff, D-Bow.

The Swinomish Tribal Senate has allowed La Conner Schools to retain its “Braves” moniker while adopting new imagery for signs, team uniforms and district venues.

The state “mascot money,” as it has been referred to, has enabled the district to install new signage, re-paint the gym floor at the Landy James Activity Court and this summer will enable re-painting of the home grandstand at Whittaker Field.

Cram said receipt of the mascot money allowed the district to show a fairly robust cash balance.

“It popped up in July of 2022 with the mascot money,” Cram said.

Since those funds were earmarked for a specific purpose during a time of shrinking enrollment, they could not be tapped to prop up the district’s bottom line, however.

“We all know we’re in a serious financial situation here,” conceded Cram. “This is very difficult to look at. But we feel we have the ability to do this. We feel we can get there.”

Indeed, causes for optimism were revealed during the retreat. The district will likely see its special education allotment increase. And retiring Director of Special Programs Andy Wheeler is optimistic about winning a major 21st Century grant award to expand the Braves Club after-school program.

Wheeler acknowledged the district has twice applied for and not won this grant, but he is more confident this time around given the assistance from the Northwest Education Services District with preparation of the more than 50-page grant application.

“It could be so huge,” Wheeler said.

In addition, the district receives Swinomish funds and federal impact aid dollars.

“Thank goodness,” Deyo said, “that we get impact funds, that Swinomish gives us money and we have our levy. I think it’s pretty scary we’ll only have a $110,000 fund balance. We need to right-size our district and get kids back to La Conner.”