The Centralia School Board unanimously approved its 2023-24 budget following a public hearing on Wednesday.
No public comments were presented at the hearing, which took place in the district’s board room in Centralia at 4:30 p.m. on July 26 ahead of the school board’s regular meeting.
The $59.409 million budget features $1.51 million in cuts to regular instruction, which includes teacher salaries, travel and more; $206,806 in cuts to special education; $220,502 in cuts to vocational education, which includes the middle school CTE program; and $153,686 in cuts to other community services, which is how its contribution to the Centralia Community Pool is labeled in the budget. The district will pay $60,000 to the pool in 2022-23, down from the $213,686 it paid in 2022-23 and the $426,717 it paid in 2021-22.
The total budget reductions amount to $4.2 million, a number calculated by the district’s financial department based on levy expiring at the end of the year and the 5% enrollment decline expected to result from that funding reduction.
The reductions came as a result of the failure of the school district levy earlier this year.
The budget cuts were intentionally spread as much as possible to minimize the negative impact on specific programs that either have a known impact on student enrollment or are critical to student success in the classroom, according to school board members.
As of Wednesday, the district had 3,132 students enrolled for the 2023-2024 school year, down from about 3,297 students enrolled in 2022-23, according to information presented by Joe Vetter, the district’s executive director of fiscal services and operations.
The majority of that enrollment decline is seen in first grade, fourth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, 10th grade and 12th grade.
As of Wednesday, the district had approximately 240 certified staff and 177 classified staff employed for the 2023-2024 school year, which are similar to the district’s staffing for the 2022-23 year. In that year, the district employed about 244 certified staff and 174 classified staff.
Of the total $59.409 in expenditures budgeted for 2023-24, 82%, or $48.5 million, goes to salaries, payroll taxes and benefits for certified and classified staff; 13%, or $7.9 million, goes to purchased services; 4.9%, or $2.94 million, goes toward supplies and instructional resources; and 0.1%, or $67,384, goes toward travel.
Of the $2.16 million in levy funding included in the budget, 67%, or $1.45 million, goes toward salaries, payroll taxes and benefits for instructional facilitator, music instructors and technology staff; 32%, or $700,000, goes toward extracurricular activities and athletics; and 1%, or $20,000, goes toward club activities. The district additionally plans to transfer $150,000 to the transportation vehicle fund and $550,000 to the capital projects funds.
The district expects to take in a total of $57.96 million in revenue in the 2022-2023 — down from $65.93 million in 2022-23. The district’s projected ending balance of about $3.87 million, down from $6.02 million in 2022-23 and $7.29 million in 2021-22.
The 2023-24 ending balance amount falls within the district’s policy of having 5-7% of its total budget left over at the end of the year, according to Superintendent Lisa Grant. “That’s important to our financial health,” she said Wednesday.
“If you don’t do that, you escalate the problem in future years,” Board Chair Tim Browning added.
A recording of the Centralia School Board’s July 26 public hearing and regular meeting can be viewed on the district’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/centraliaschooldistrict.
The draft of the budget that the board approved is accessible at https://app.eduportal.com/documents/view/873559.
