Cuts vs. classrooms: Valley’s school districts manage shrinking state allocations in similar ways

Published 3:00 pm Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Bill Blakely had a suggestion Thursday night for critics of the school board’s budget decisions: You try it.

“These guys,” he said, gesturing to the Snoqualmie Valley School Board, “even with a $2 million flood (in 2009), taking two years to get reimbursed, up to two years to get that money back — try doing your own budget that way, waiting for that check to come — somehow, they kept everybody paid during that time.”

Funding school operations, even without a natural disaster, requires deep understanding of complicated formulas, excellent forecasting skills, and even better timing. Districts receive state funding per pupil based on anticipated monthly attendance for the first half of the year, and actual monthly averages for the second half. School is in session for only nine or 10 months, but state allocations are divided up and paid out in 12 installments.

Teacher pension amounts are set by the state legislature, but the districts must pay into them. This year, in Snoqualmie Valley, the district is anticipating another $800,000 increase in its contributions to retired teachers’ incomes.

Teacher salaries and raises are also set by a state schedule, which the legislature has reduced 1.9 percent for the coming school year. Teacher salaries account for most of the budget in both local school districts, where 81 percent of expenditures are on staff salaries and benefits. Certificate-holding staff (primarily teachers, but also principals and other administrators) at Riverview earn 43.8 percent of the budget in salary alone and another 13.4 percent in benefits. At Snoqualmie Valley, certificate-holding staff earn about 45.89 percent of the budget. Employee benefits total 20.62 percent of the budget, but this amount is not broken out by certificate and classified staff.

To remain competitive in attracting teachers though, both districts offer other types of pay and greater benefits. Also, not all teachers are paid for by the state.

In the Riverview School District, for example, only 146 of the 171 full-time equivalency teachers on staff in the 2010-11 school year were funded by the state, and only 45 percent of classified staff (non-teaching positions like bus drivers, secretaries, and cafeteria workers) pay came from state funding.

“I’ve never heard of a district that could operate on the number of teachers (state legislators) fund,” said Riverview Superintendent Conrad Robertson.

Further complicating the state school funding equation were the unprecedented mid-year budget cuts that all 295 districts in the state had to absorb. Riverview lost $200,000 that it had already budgeted for the school year that just ended, and Snoqualmie Valley lost $500,000.

These losses are on top of three consecutive years of state funding cuts in both districts. For Snoqualmie Valley, the cumulative funding cuts total $5.5 million in the past three years, which would be about 10 percent of the general fund budget approved by the school board Aug. 18.

For Riverview, the cumulative cuts totaled $2.3 million, which would be 8 percent of the general fund budget. The Riverview board is expected to adopt the budget on Tuesday, Aug. 23.

Riverview also lost funding from the state because enrollment projections were 42 full-time equivalent (FTE) students higher than the actual number attending school last year. That meant $210,000 less in state allocations.

Enrollment in both districts is steadily increasing, though. Riverview sees about 1 percent enrollment increase annually, while Snoqualmie Valley gets an increase of about 2 percent.

Educating an increasing number of students with a shrinking number of resources is a challenge not only for the teachers who are negotiating their contracts currently, but also for the districts as a whole.

“We’ve tried to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, “ said Snoqualmie Valley’s Business Services Director Ryan Stokes. So classified staff — custodians, bus drivers, secretaries and other non-teaching staff — positions have been eliminated drastically in past years.

While Stokes is proud to say “We haven’t RIFed (Reduction in Force) any teachers  this year,” he feels that the district has been as creative as possible in making cuts in ways that affected student education the least. “At what point do we have to start cutting away at the bone?” he wonders.

Riverview Finance Director Bill Adamo reports a similar program of budget cuts away from the classroom, by cutting classified staff, but no layoffs of certificate staff.

“We have reduced force mainly through attrition,” he said, explaining that when senior teachers retire, they are either not replaced at all, or are replaced typically by younger teachers, lower on the state salary schedule. When necessary, the district has filled short-term gaps in staff by using the fund balance of the general fund.

“That’s kind of been our philosophy,” Adamo said. “We’ve used the fund balance to allow attrition to run its course.”

Snoqualmie Valley is reluctant to use its healthy general fund balance, estimated to be $3.6 million by Aug. 31, nor its contingency line item allowing for the same amount, for teacher salaries.

Stokes explained that the contingency line item in the budget, or “capacity” as he prefers to call it, is not actual funds that the district holds. The capacity line item is simply a place-holder in the budget, allowing the district to spend that additional amount without going through the lengthy budget revision, or extension, process. Riverview also has a contingency capacity of $500,000.

Contingency funds are generally not spent unless the revenue is there first, for example, if the district has significantly higher enrollment numbers than projected, it can hire another teacher, knowing the state funding will be coming for those extra students. It can also be used in emergencies, such as the 2009 flood.

Using part of the general fund balance to improve teacher compensation as many Snoqualmie Valley teachers have proposed is possible, but “My question is, is it sustainable?” said Stokes.