White Salmon Schools

Funding

The Funding Puzzle

Funding for schools comes from a number of different sources, and can quickly become a complicated puzzle. Looking at the information below dealing with the school district's operating budget for the 2005/2006 school year can help show the difficulties involved in running a quality school program using money made available from the state. Understanding how these details fit together help demonstrate the need for additional levy funding.

This table of figures and the graph that follows show 4 basic categories for school expenditures. As with any organization, salaries, benefits, and other employee-related costs make up the bulk of the budget costs. However, state funding shortfalls in the Non-Employee Related Costs (NERCs) category account for almost as much of a funding deficit, though the overall expenses are much lower. Another large cost not addressed by state funding is extracurricular activities, with all income shown coming from student-paid user fees.

For more details on any of the pieces of the funding puzzle, click on the title of the categories below.

Salaries, Benefits

State funding formulas for salaries, benefits, and substitute costs for teachers, administrators, classroom assistants, office staff, custodians, and maintenance staff is based on student enrollment. As enrollment grows, so does state funding for the people who make our schools work. Currently, our district's student enrollment is declining, so funding from the state in this, the largest single budget category, is also declining. As the graduating classes of 2006, 2007, and 2008 leave the district and are replaced by smaller classes at the elementary, the overall school district enrollment is likely to continue to decline before leveling off in the 2008/2009 school year.

While declining student enrollment may allow some cost savings in staffing levels, it is not possible to match the decline and still maintain a quality school program. An anticipated loss of $235,000 over the next two years due to declining student enrollment will be partially offset by $145,000 in anticipated staff reductions. Since staff reductions have been taking place over the last three school years to keep the district's past budgets in balance, reductions beyond those anticipated would pose a threat to many of the important programs we offer at all three schools. This leaves a $90,000 gap that the Feb 7 levy is intended to fill.

NERCs

Non-Employee Related Costs (NERCs) include many of the basic tools and necessites required to run any organization or business: materials, supplies, utilities, insurance, travel expenses, and equipment. Additionally, they include other costs unique to a school district, such as payment for education-related and other services from the Educational Service District (ESD 112)in Vancouver, and from Running Start, which allows many of our students to get an early start on college courses and credits.

Although this section of the budget accounts for a little over 13% of our district's budget, it accounts for over 42% of our budget gap, and it seems to be growing every year. Take a look at your family budget and you'll see why. The cost of many items we use goes up every year, but some have been increasing by leaps and bounds, and this has a huge impact on the bottom line of any large organization. As we all know the cost of gas has gone up dramatically in the past two years, with the price per gallon on the first day of school in 2003 of $1.54 jumping to $2.49 on the first day in 2005. Diesel fuel has gone up even more dramatically, from $1.31 per gallon in 2003, to $2.61 in 2005 -- That's one penny short of doubling! See Graph. And in a school district as remote and geographically large as ours, those costs add up quickly.

Gasoline and diesel are only two of the rapidly rising elements in the NERC category of our budget. Basic utility costs such as electricity, heating, and water are basically fixed costs -- we have to heat, power, and supply our schools with water services no matter how many students we have enrolled -- but the costs for those utilities continue to rise faster than the state's student-based allotment does. Insurance costs have also risen quickly and, though the new security systems will provide an added protection of the district's facilities and equipment, they won't translate into a discount on our insurance.

Despite the constantly rising costs in this area of the budget, the state continues to use funding formula created in 1978! This is one reason why the local levy is so important to all districts in the state. And it's one reason why the Feb 7 levy has $15,000 funding earmarked for future inflation costs, mainly in the NERC category.

Extracurricular Activities

Think about what provides the lifeblood of our schools in the community and it goes well-beyond the classroom walls. It includes opportunities for students to explore new skills and activities, to challenge themselves on the field or court, to perform for their peers, parents, and friends, and to become well-rounded individuals. Think about these opportunities for our district's children and you'll be thinking about the many extracurricular activities that enrich the lives of our students and the pride of our community.

Sports, clubs, music, and all the things that go with them to make them so valuable to our community are not funded by the state. The $32,000 revenue in this year's budget comes from student activity fees and other fees paid by students who participate directly in these programs. Despite sharp increases in student activity fees over the past years, the revenue doesn't come close to funding the costs of these extracurricular programs.

The district has always funded the bulk of our existing extracurricular activity costs through the locally approved levy. This year, an additional $10,000 is in the levy request to help maintain the district's playing fields, as well as $30,000 to maintain the Park Center bulding, both of which are used not only by our district's students, but by community members and organizations.

Non-Basic Education Costs

This category of the budget, which shows the smallest gap between what the state provides and what the school district must pay, deals primarily with grant funding from the state that passes into our coffers and then out again as we provide services to our students. Since most money in this category comes in and goes out, it's not surprising that it remains close to an even balance. However, as this category also covers travel costs for events such as field trips that are not included in state-funded grants (or in other budget categories), there is a small net loss in funds.

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