Yelm Community Schools (YCS) will open the 2024-25 school year with a deficit of $1.3 million in its general fund as the Board of Directors unanimously approved the annual budget Thursday, Aug. 22.
The board’s decision will be finalized Aug. 31 ahead of the district’s Sept. 3 first day of school.
Jennifer Carrougher, YCS Chief of Finance and Operations, reported the district’s expenditures at over $95.5 million versus a total of $88.6 million in revenues and that the district will open the school year with a beginning fund balance of $5.9 million.
Carrougher told the board that the fund balance depletion is due to the double failure of the district’s educational programs and operations levy, paying higher salaries than the state provides, underfunding of basic education, inflation of goods and services, and reduced enrollment, among other causes.
Carrougher said if the unassigned fund balance of $7.375 million and ending fund balance of $1.3 million were $0, the overall budget deficit would be $8,687,933. These numbers are a budgeted projection.
She added that without the district’s ongoing budget cuts, its projected expenditures for 2024-25 would be $104 million versus $95.5 million with the current cuts, amounting to a difference of $8.5 million.
As for the district’s other four funds, Carrougher estimates that the capital projects fund, debt service fund, transportation vehicle fund and associated student body (ASB) fund will all be in good standing for the 2024-25 school year.
The district projects an estimated beginning balance of $27.9 million for the capital projects fund, which includes $29.1 million in available funds for capital projects, and an ending balance of $19.7 million. For the debt service fund, YCS projects starting the year with a balance of $3.7 million versus an ending balance of $3.8 million, and it has $10.9 million in available funds. The district anticipates a beginning balance of $1.03 million for its transportation vehicle fund with $1.5 million in available funds and an ending balance of $846,059 due to bus purchases costing nearly $690,000. Lastly, the district projects the ASB balance will begin at $437,979 and end at $399,492.
As the district continues to make reductions and negotiate with unions, numbers will fluctuate. But Director Casey Shaw said after studying more than 400 pages of the budget “line by line,” the district has no choice but to adopt its budget with a deficit because of what he called a flawed funding system from the state.
“For those that don’t know, there’s been hours and hours and hours of discussion on this topic. It is what it is,” Shaw said. “For those that know me, I always question the government’s ability to fund or do anything to be honest. What this has reiterated is that we could cut every single thing we are legally allowed to cut by law, by mandate, by collective bargaining agreements and by other contractual agreements and we are still going to be multi-millions of dollars in the hole. It is physically impossible to balance the budget with the way this system is operating. The system is diseased as a whole, and we’re in the spotlight right now.”
The board also approved a general fund budget extension, which includes increasing revenues by $4.5 million and expenditures by $4 million, for 2023-24. Carrougher said the extension occurs any time the district exceeds the expenditures that it had adopted for the current year. This is due to enrollment changes, particularly special education, unanticipated grant increases and carryover, local effort assistance increases, increases in class overage/coverage, substitutes and cost of materials, supplies and operating costs.
The next school board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12 at Mill Pond Elementary.
