ALL FUNDS

BUDGET AND LEVY SUMMARY - FISCAL YEAR 2007-2008 

HIGHLIGHTS 

The major effort of the budget for 2007-2008 school year is to present an expenditure plan that is realistically balanced with expected revenues and supports those activities which help our students meet state and district academic standards.  Further, the budget seeks to maintain the cash balance and fund balance of the district and thus avoid mid-year shortages of cash on hand to cover routine payroll and other expenditures.

General Fund

The General Fund budget is heavily influence each year by changes in state funding levels.  This past legislative session included some of the most noteworthy changes to school district funding in many years.  The following is a summary of the major impact areas to school districts for the 2007-2008 school year:

Initiative 732 (COLA) - Approved by voters in November 2000, requires an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for school employees based on the Seattle Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the prior calendar year.  For the 2007-2008 school year, the State funded a 3.7% cost-of-living increase for both certificated and classified staff.  The state also provided a .06% increase to the certificated salary schedule to help eliminate some of the salary inequity that was created years ago when the state adopted a statewide salary allocation schedule.  This statewide allocation schedule is commonly known as the LEAP schedule.  At that time the state ÒgrandfatheredÓ 34 districts to a salary above the adopted LEAP schedule since their district's salary schedule was already higher than the LEAP schedule.  The salary equity increase is intended to reduce the grandfathered districts from 34 to 13 by the end of the 2007-09 biennium.  The district did not receive any salary equity increase for classified employees.

The district will receive a total of 4.3% increase for each funded Program 01-Basic Education certificated staff member and a 3.7% increase for each funded Program 01-Basic Education classified staff member.  This will result in about $380,000 in additional revenues to the district.   The total cost to pass this benefit through to all employees in the district is about $900,000.

Local Effort Assistance (LEA) - Local Effort Assistance (LEA), also known as levy equalization, will continue in 2007-2008.  The Legislature continued to fund LEA at 100% as compared to 95.63% in 2005-06.  By maintaining the funding percentage at 100% it helps to equalize tax revenues between property rich districts and property poor district throughout the state.  The increase will result in additional revenues of $285,000 over and above the $1.3 million received in 2006-2007.  The increase will be used to offset the salary and retirement increases for unfunded Program-01 Basic Education staff.

Health Insurance Benefit - The health insurance benefit was increased from $682.54 per FTE staff member to $707 per funded Program 01-Basic Education staff member.  This increase will result in about $90,000 in additional revenues to the district.  The total cost to pass this benefit through to all employees in the district is about $125,000.

Non-Employee Related Costs (NERC) - The district is currently funded at $9,476 per FTE (staffing) for NERCs.  The 2007-2008 budget has an increase to $9,751 for every Program 01-Basic Education funded staff person.  The increase will result in additional revenues of $50,000 over the 2006-2007 allocation.  This amount is allocated to help pay for utilities, building budgets, maintenance costs, etc.

Retirement Rates - Substantially all employees of the school district participate in a cost-sharing statewide retirement system managed by the Washington State Department of Retirement Systems.  The two plans include the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) and School Employees' Retirement System (SERS).  Each employee's retirement plan is funded jointly by the employee and the district.  This legislative session included significant increases in both the employee and employer's contribution rates.  The employer contribution rates increased from 4.75% and 4.86% to 5.84% and 5.9% for the TRS and SERS plans respectively.  The result is an increased cost to the district of about $177,000.

Student Achievement Fund (Initiative 728) - The Student Achievement Fund was authorized by voters in November 2000.  Districts can use funds to lower class sizes, hire additional teachers, create extended learning opportunities for students, provide professional development for educators, and provide early childhood programs.  New for the 2007-2008 school year is an increase in funding from $375.00 in 2006-2007 to $450.00 per student.  The district will see about $330,000 in additional revenues for this program.  Student achievement funds are used for class-size reduction, professional development, extended learning opportunities for students and the Parent Child Home Program.  The additional revenues will be used to further implement all-day kindergarten and support class-size reduction.

Special Education
Special Education experienced the most significant changes during the legislative session.  The state completely revamped the cost allocation model that has been used in the past.  Previously, the state had a formula that that recognized each eligible special education student as a basic education student first.  Using the old model school districts were required to allocate a portion of special education costs to basic education.  The new model requires all special education costs to be recognized in special education rather than recognizing some portion of the costs in basic education.  For the 2007-08 budget special education costs in program 21 have increased by about $600,000 as a result of this change in accounting.  The funding in basic education went down and the funding in special education went up to off set this change in accounting.  The state is continuing to work on the ramifications of this change as it effects all basic education staffing ratios.

Learning Assistance Program
The state's Learning Assistance Program (LAP) provides additional resources to school district to provide additional opportunities for struggling students.  The state increased the LAP staff units in their funding formula which provided an approximately 10% increase in funding state-wide.  The change in formula will provide an increase of about $50,000 for the 2007-08 budget.

Technology Upgrades and Improvements
Funding was provided by the state to allow school districts and schools to update and improve their technology capacity.  Specifically, the state provided one-time funding based upon providing $3,000 for each elementary school, $6,000 for each middle or junior high school and $11,000 for each high school.  The funding is intended to augment existing technology purchases and aid in the further use of technology in improving instruction.  The district is anticipating receiving approximately $35,000 for technology upgrades and improvements.

Targeted Investments in Math and Science
The state provided additional funding of Learning Improvement Days (LID) for math and science teachers to support district efforts to align instruction with the new math and science state standards.  These professional development days are in addition to the two LID days the state already provides in the existing state funding formulas. The district is anticipating receiving about $50,000 for the targeted investments in math and science.  The additional funds will be used to supplement the district's current professional development program in math and science.

Enrollment

The district's enrollment has grown steadily over the past several years.  The 2007-2008 budget is based on an enrollment projection of 4,540 FTE students (plus 45 FTE Running Start).  This is an increase of 60 FTE over the budgeted 2006-2007 school year.  A three year Cohort projection estimates 4,559 FTE for the 2007-2008 school year.