District, union differ on how much of a reserve fund should be used to offset impacts of expected state cuts
By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
Nine layoff notices were sent out last week to provisional employees in the Medical Lake School District, although administrators hope to recall most after the Washington Legislature releases a final budget.
Superintendent Pam Veltri said the positions are in elementary education, speech language pathology, and high school special education. Provisional employees include those who have been with the district for less than three years unless they have two or more previous years of experience within Washington.
Public school districts are required to notify certificated employees by May 15 of whether or not they will have a contract for the following school year. In light of that, the Medical Lake School Board passed a resolution last month authorizing a modified education program for next school year in the event that reduced state funding necessitates personnel and program cuts to balance the district budget. The board also agreed to lower the restriction on a designated reserve fund from 10 to 7 percent to restore at least some of the state shortfall.
Medical Lake Education Association president Ryan Grant believes that agreement should prevent layoffs, program cuts or increases in class size.
“As of last month's board meeting our ‘unreserved, undesignated fund balance' is at slightly more than $2 million, which in the context of a $19.4 million budget is about 10.3 percent,” Grant wrote in a recent letter to union members. “Keeping a 7 percent reserve would mean keeping $1.36 million dollars, meaning that we could potentially spend $600,000 of the reserve and still be within the guidelines set by the board.”
Veltri, however, disagrees with that assessment. “The board's feeling is we could use up to $300,000 (of the reserve fund) as long as we didn't go below the 7 percent threshold,” she said. “There was never any indication that no matter what (the reserve fund amount) was that we'd bring it down to 7 percent.”
She added that the district must make sure the reserve can cover expected state budget shortfalls in the future as well. “This is a two year budget. We're hoping to use some of our cash reserve, our savings account, some this year and some next year,” she said. “We don't want to use it all in one year.”
District business manager Don Johnson said he projects that at the end of this coming August Medical Lake will have a $1.8 million reserve fund balance, plus or minus a hundred thousand due to variations in state funding payments.
District administrators are still looking at other cost savings for next year, including reduced bus routes and efficiencies gleaned from running one less elementary school. Veltri said it's difficult to plan specifics before negotiations wrap up on a three-year teacher's union contract, in the works since March.
“You can only cut those things that you either agree to in bargaining or that aren't required by the state,” Veltri said. “For example, we recently lost $1.2 million in state funding to reduce class size but our contract has class size language. If we can't negotiate that, if we need to find money, it has to be in those things we're not required to have, and there's a number of those things.”
She said the board will have to consider how reducing physical education, music or other student enrichment programs not required by the state would affect the reputation of the district, which has struggled in recent years with declining enrollment. It must also balance the projected cost savings of any cuts against things like student safety and building maintenance.
The district does plan to recruit for a secondary math teacher this year as well as a replacement for retiring school nurse Patty Doyle, although Veltri said no hiring can be done until the state Legislature approves a final budget.
The Legislature is currently in the final days of a special session, and many are questioning whether they will be able to pass a final budget without entering into a second session. This would make it even more difficult for districts like Medical Lake to develop thier budgets in time for next school year.
“That's why we issued those layoff notices, intending that most of those people should come back,” Veltri said. “Even with the worst case budget if we can use $300,000 of our cash reserve we should — we may not fill all the positions that have been vacated — but we think at this point we'll be OK.”
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at ryan@cheneyfreepress.com.
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