Taking a closer peek at ML's school budget

While many staff members have been enjoying their summer break, Medical Lake central administrators like Superintendent Tim Ames and Chad Moss, director of finance, have been involved in getting things in line for 2018-19.

For Ames, that has meant working with staff at various levels and have them agree to a new three-year contract. If he reads things right, that will have already been done by now as negotiations were supposed to have wrapped up on Aug. 15 with the contract put before the school board Aug. 28 for their approval.

That effort received a big assist from Moss who helped provide some simple clarity for negotiations.

“Chad’s understanding of the numbers, and what those look like, have made our negotiations — and I want to say from my perspective — transparent,” Ames said.

One session was completed in just three hours. “Because of the numbers Chad had out in front of them there’s no mystery to it,” Ames said.

There is little mystery, too, when crafting the budget as a whole where the district anticipates spending $25.9 million for the upcoming school year — up 11.7 percent — while taking in $25.5 million, or 11.5 percent more than last school year. New numbers are based on 2017-18 enrollment, which varied by just five students from projections.

And that’s pretty good considering, “We’ve dropped 500 kids over that past 15 years or so,” Moss said.

Projected enrollment on which to base that budget number is 1,825 students, the actual ending number in June to close 2017-18. The budget includes about $2.5 million in new revenue from the state.

“Percentage-wise, it’s pretty standard to what has been done in the past,” Moss said.

The more complex exercise for the district — and Moss — is the new requirement from the Legislature to budget forecast four years out into a very uncertain future.

“We had never done that before,” Moss said. The only prior requirement was the more realistic next school year.

“We don’t know what picture that paints,” he said. And to accurately predict it could be the equivalent of throwing darts at a target.

Medical Lake has seen flat enrollment for a number of years and that is due to a variety of factors. Included is the limited housing availability in the area, and the impact of nearby Fairchild Air Force Base. “It’s just hard to project,” Moss said.

Ames said they would like to anticipate an increase in enrollment with Fairchild landing a new squadron of tankers, and several hundred personnel to go with them, but housing offerings are very limited within the school district boundaries.

The city of Medical Lake has only five more building lots available, plus base housing is reportedly at 99-percent occupancy with huge demand. Ames heard recently that some 100 families were waiting to move on base.

Michael Anderson Elementary School, located inside the Fairchild fences, is popular for base personnel with children, Ames said. “A lot of families like to choice their kids there.”

Other schools within the district, however, like the high school, middle school and Hallett Elementary within the city of Medical Lake, will not likely see increases.

“Here’s our experience,” Ames said. “Once we get Air Force folks going to Michael Anderson and then they go to our middle school, if they’re (staying) around they tend to stay in Medical Lake School District.”

But once students finish fifth-grade and can more easily catch buses from home — which in Fairchild’s case can be within 60 minutes of the base — there is a defined loss of older enrollees.

The recent announcement that the Amazon Fulfillment Center, scheduled to open in 2019 and employ 1,500 or more people from that launch date, is also an intangible as far as Medical Lake is concerned, Ames said.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.