Frequently asked questions about budget planning for 2023-24

There is a confluence of a few major factors.

• Federal COVID-specific funding is ending at the end of this school year.
• Staffing has been increasing while enrollment has dropped over the last number of years. Enrollment has not recovered to pre-COVID levels and is being impacted by falling birth rates in Whatcom County and across the state.
• We are facing unpredictable increasing costs for resources and compensation
  • Inflation makes things more expensive, some examples include insurance, fuel, supplies.
  • The legislature has determined a cost-of-living salary increase of 3.7%. The state does not provide funding for a good portion of our staff, the district has to make up the difference through local funding to give the same increase to provide the cost-of-living increase to all employees equitably.
  • The state has actually reduced our funding for staff compensation from previous levels. This is known as regionalization. The state’s formula has reduced Bellingham’s regionalization factor each of the past four years, and it seems the legislature is cutting it again.
  • The state’s prototypical funding model is not realistic or adequate. For example, for a district our size, the state says we should have six nurses, but only gives us funding for 4.5. We currently have eight, thanks to our local levy, and most people in our community would say that we should have one at each of our 22 schools.
• The amount of funding we can raise from local levies is capped by the state. Even if costs and needs go up, we as a district aren’t able to ask our community for more resources.

We knew the COVID funding from the federal government was short-term, and we chose to invest it in people to help get our students and schools through these challenging times. You’ll remember that during the pandemic, many people had a lot of uncertainty and stress regarding their jobs as well as the future of schools and education. Even though our enrollment dropped during COVID, we did not lay off any staff during the pandemic, thanks to these COVID dollars. We prioritized retaining our staff and ensuring smaller class sizes to ease concerns about disease spread, especially prior to vaccines being available for first adults and then children. After retaining staff and buying personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks and air ventilation systems, we still had significant funding. We made a conscious effort to invest in staff to help us manage the pandemic, including health services staff, mental health specialists and safety and security staff. These roles are still important today, even though the emergency funding that has made them possible is going away. We are able to maintain some of these staff thanks to grants, but we plan to reduce others. During the budget development process, we have looked at the system as a whole as we made reductions and tried to maintain some of the supports added during COVID that are still needed.

School finance is extremely unpredictable as it relies significantly on the actions of the state legislature. We had hoped that the state would offer additional resources to districts for next year and into the future, but the legislature had different priorities this session. Inflation and rising compensation requirements were additional unpredictable factors.

Nothing is final until the legislature approves its budget, but based on what we are hearing out of the senate, house and OSPI, we believe planning for an approximately $16 million reduction is prudent. If the news out of Olympia is significantly different, we would share that news right away.

Many districts in the state and country are facing similar budget challenges, mostly due to the sunsetting of COVID-related federal funds and declining enrollment for districts. Districts that are not facing budget issues may not have received as much money during the pandemic, may have spent their COVID funds on materials rather than personnel, and may have made budget cuts previously.

As always, you can share feedback with and ask questions of Superintendent Greg Baker, your child’s principal or, if you are an employee, you can talk with your supervisor. You can also fill out this form if you have questions or comments to share. Some have asked about connecting with our local legislators about the state budgeting process, which we encourage. Although we have done our best to advocate to those in decision-making positions, we are concerned that not all legislators are aware of the impact of decisions made in Olympia. The state provides funding to districts for what it calls its prototypical model for schools which most people across the state and in Bellingham would say is woefully inadequate to fund the program and staff we value for our children.

They are mostly proportional with a few exceptions. Eligibility to receive special federal funds for Title I schools, which is based on poverty rates, means those elementary schools have additional staff/supports. We estimate that reductions at elementary is about $5.1 million. Cost savings for secondary schools (meaning middle and high) is approximately $4.2 million. Reductions at the District Office and within central services is an estimated $2.6 million.

At the District Office and within our central services, we have been working on attrition opportunities all year and haven’t been filling positions when they become open due to retirement, resignation or reassignment.  We are reducing in many areas including some of our executive positions, directors, executive administrative assistants, and facilities staff including custodial, electrician and groundskeeper positions. These district-wide reductions are approximately $2.6 million, which again, we got a head start on this year. Reductions in our schools will not occur until the 2023-24 school year begins.

That is not necessarily true; here is a clarification:

• We anticipate that we will continue to run music education, taught by specialists, at all elementary grade levels across the system
• Middle school music and art will see an adjustment as we reduce staffing across most content areas. We plan to maintain music electives like band and orchestra across our middle schools.
• Our high schools’ master schedules will be done later this spring/early summer once we have received updated budget numbers from state and OSPI.  There will likely be some changes to course offerings across many subject areas in our high schools. No specific programs or subjects are being cut, but we may make efficiencies if/when there is a class with low enrollment.

While nothing has been finalized, we follow an agreed upon process with our labor partners if/when we need to reduce staff. If certificated staff are on “provisional contracts,” they are more likely to be notified that we will not have a job for them next year, but it depends on where/what they teach and their certifications. We absolutely recognize that our community and students value and love all of our staff, including those recently hired.

No, we cannot use bond money to pay for the staff and things that will likely get cut. Bond dollars can only be used for capital projects and other construction related projects.