OAK HARBOR: School board greenlights budget
Luisa Loi reports from the Oak Harbor School District’s board meeting of Mon., Aug. 26, 2024 for the Whidbey News-Times.
Monday night, the Oak Harbor School Board unanimously adopted a $114.13 million budget for what is expected will be a financially challenging school year…. [T]he district had announced in April the possibility of cutting $3.8 million and eliminating 53 staff positions from the 2024-25 budget…
After the pandemic hit, the district hired extra classified staff members to support students during a time of unprecedented need. With the end of pandemic relief funding, this surplus has resulted in the budget being “well over” what the state allocates, the [Superintendent Michelle Kuss-Cybula] said.…
The district is expected to make a total of $111.9 million in revenues, or over $2 million less than budgeted for expenditures. Both revenues and expenditures increased due to inflation, according to a budget presentation.
They Said It
As said by Board Member Jessica Aws during a meeting on Aug. 12, the district needs to advocate for fully funded education as there won’t be any pandemic relief funding coming to “save” them this time.
On Aug. 12, board members were alarmed to learn that, on Aug. 5, the Office of the Washington State Auditor stated in a press release that “one measure of a government’s financial health is the number of days of operating expenses it holds in its general fund, which is ideally 60 days or more.”
Kuss-Cybula said in an interview she had never heard a state auditor set such a high standard, and was taken aback by it as it would represent a fund balance of 16.7%. In fact, she said, that wouldn’t even be possible to achieve by next year, unless the district violates class size agreements with certificated staff, eliminating more positions and stacking classes together.
“There’s no way that districts can cut that much,” she said.
