It takes training, skill and experience to put together a multi-million school district budget — especially given the Washington Legislature’s penchant for going down to the final session seconds before passing a budget.
Given all that, sometimes you need the winds of fortune to blow your way. Right now, Cheney School District’s executive director of finance, Kassidy Probert, is enjoying the breeze.
In information provided to the school board at a June 24 budget workshop, Probert explained he had included funding for all-day kindergarten at all five elementary schools, a 3 percent cost of living adjustment for district personnel salaries and money for K-3 class size reductions in the upcoming 2015-16 school year calculation. All of those elements made it into the final 2015-17 general operating budget finally adopted by the Legislature July 10.
“I got lucky on that one,” Probert said. “I guessed right.”
Probert expected to have final budget numbers from the state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction by the board’s regular meeting July 15. In preliminary data given the board at the workshop, those numbers ranged widely depending on which branch of state government made the proposal, but in all cases carried increases over 2013-15 levels.
Cheney’s original apportionment in January was just over $27.78 million in state funding, with Gov. Jay Inslee’s budget providing an additional $2,780,189. Budget figures from the House provided the largest increase over the January apportionment, $4,387,272 while Senate budget figures gave Cheney an additional $3,448,351.
One of the largest areas of increase in the budget was the amount the state allocated for materials, supplies and operating costs for most school district programs. That figure jumped from $840 in the last biennium to approximately $1,200 per student, a result Probert said that likely stemmed from the state Supreme Court’s decision in the McCleary case that ordered the state to fulfill its constitutional duty to provide for basic education.
The school district is projecting an enrollment of 4,307 students in the 2015-16 year.
Probert said the final budget was good news for the district, particularly parents of kindergarten students.
In past years, state funding enabled the district to offer full day kindergarten at only two elementary schools — Salnave in Cheney and Sunset in Airway Heights — with the program’s availability at other schools based on sliding scale tuition.
“Parents will no longer have to pay for full day kindergarten,” Probert said of the state funding levels. “That’s great for the school district, and great for parents.”
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
Reader Comments(0)