Budget Updates

BUDGET CONTEXT

Funding for our public schools is falling. While the legislature has added additional funding for our schools since the state Supreme Court ordered them to do so in 2017, the amount of new funding has leveled off since 2021. The money the state provides to districts doesn’t actually pay for the full costs of a basic education as defined in state law.  The cost of operating our schools, including inflation, means the costs are growing faster than the funding the state is providing. 

The State Legislature is not funding K-12 education in a way that is sustainable. Some of this is due to our revenue system–an income tax could be more sustainable, adequate, and equitable revenue source instead of property tax–but some is due to the State requiring school districts to provide services without giving more money *and* limiting school district’s ability to tax themselves to cover those costs. 

Recent drops in public school enrollment is a regional challenge. Since 2019, public schools in King County lost 14,000 students. SPS lost 5,000 students over that time period, which is the equivalent of 14 average-sized elementary and K-8 schools in SPS. We do not believe that declining enrollment should cause students who remain in public schools to suffer a degradation of their education through budget cuts. 

2024-25 BUDGET updates - from 4/3/24 board mtg

2024-25 Budget updates - from 3/20/24 board mtg

SPS is not proposing to close or consolidate any schools for the 2024-25 school year, as they want to instead make school changes at a system-wide level (starting 2025-26) rather than piece-meal changes.


SPS is proposing $38 million of one-time solutions, $30 million of ongoing operating reductions, and $35 million of an interfund loan from its capital fund.


OUR TAKE ON 2024-25 PROPOSAL

We, along with some members of the Board, have significant questions about the line items in $30 million of ongoing budget cuts as SPS did not seek community feedback on these plans before announcing them, and has not shown these are less bad than other proposals, such as not allowing schools to carryforward money they did not spend last year. The board requested more information on the options considered and we agree! We also urge SPS to consider more options than currently presented, and provide more transparent and detailed information than what they have shared publicly. For example, there are entire lines of business that are not student-facing that SPS has not publicly discussed as options for budget reductions and we believe it is important to share why this is the case. 

2025-26 & Beyond Budget updates - from 3/20/24 board mtg

At the May 8th board meeting, SPS will present various ongoing budget reduction proposal to address the anticipated $75 million budget shortfall. In this meeting, SPS will present its plan for a System of Well-Resourced Schools. This will include various options in pursuit of that system, including school closures/consolidations, three-tier bus schedule, grade-level reorganizations (such as changing some schools to K-6), other program changes (which could be changes to option schools).

Consolidations

OUR TAKE ON CONSOLIDATIONS

We believe that a well-resourced school is one that can comprehensively and equitably support all students. This requires stable funding and ample supports. School closures or consolidations may not automatically create those supports. For example, consolidating two schools into one might allow for a full-time music teacher instead of only half-time, but the student to staff ratio remains and student access to music may not increase.


Three-tier bell schedule

OUR TAKE ON THREE-TIER BELLS 

There was a lot of key context not presented during the transportation discussion. While there may be efficiencies to be made in the general education bus system, most of the SPS transportation deficit is due to the state underfunding transportation for our homeless (McKinney-Vento) and special education students. SPS staff have been working hard to address some inefficiencies with special education transportation (make sure students aren’t getting assigned a special bus when they don’t need it) and we applaud this effort! In general, we urge SPS to provide detailed information about transportation costs by type of student service and the revenues available to support them. We also would like to see SPS explore an opt-in/opt-out transportation model for general education bus transportation that we believe could reduce the number of buses on the road (and reduce costs) without such a heavy impact to students and families as a three-tier bell schedule.

January 17, 2024 - Board budget work session

In January 2024:


NOVember & december 2023 - board meetings

In November & December 2023: