Battle Ground Public Schools’ nearly $200 million budget for 2021-2022 assumes there won’t be a local levy next calendar year, but the district will have to cut heavily into reserves to operate under that scenario.
During its Aug. 23 meeting, the BGPS Board of Directors unanimously approved the upcoming school year’s budget. In a presentation given at the meeting, BGPS Chief Financial Officer Michelle Scott showed the district has a $30.3 million shortfall in its budgeting for the coming school year.
The approved budget does not include an educational programs and operations levy for the district, as the current levy is set to expire the next calendar year. Along with state-funded levy equalizations, the lack of a levy would lead to $17.9 million less for the district, Scott explained.
The 2021-2022 budget estimates the district will have 12,008 students, a 9.3 percent decrease from 2020-2021, Scott explained. The reduction of 1,230 students from the previous year’s budget amounts to about $12.4 million less in funding for the year.
To make up the difference, the district will lean heavily into its fund balance reserve, using $16.2 million or about 48 percent of the balance. A reduction of 44 positions in the district accounted for $6.6 million in savings, and the use of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds accounted for $7.5 million.
Scott said middle school sports were not included in the 2021-2022 budget, though they would be included in a revision if a levy is approved.
The district’s expenditures are down about $2.2 million from last year’s budget, though Scott pointed out about $10.5 million in the 2021-2022 school year is funded through federal relief and recovery programs.
Without the levy, local taxes will make up about 7 percent of the district’s revenue, about half what the percentage it usually is, Scott said. The lion’s share of revenues come from the state at about 78 percent.
The drop in fund balance in the 2021-2022 budget would affect the district’s financial score tracked by the state Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI) and its credit score, which would impact future financing for capital projects. The drop would also put the district below its board-set policy of 6 percent of annual expenditures in the fund balance by about $3.8 million, which would require rebuilding the balance.
Though the district saw a sizable drop in enrollment, the district’s four-year projection for student growth assumed 227 full-time equivalent students per year, returning to pre-pandemic levels by the 2025-2026 school year. Scott noted the pandemic made forecasting student populations difficult.
The district placed a levy before voters earlier this year, but the ballot measure was defeated when about 52.4 percent of voters opposed the levy in February. In July, the board approved placing a levy on the ballot again for the November election.
If passed, the levy would collect $26.75 million in 2022, $28.2 million in 2023, $29.65 million in 2024 and $31.1 million in 2025.
If the district does not have a levy on the books for the 2022-2023 school year, Scott said the district would see a $28-million reduction in revenues. With fund balance reserves “pretty much depleted,” she said the district would have to make cuts to personnel as well as materials, supplies and operating costs.
BGPS Superintendent Denny Waters said the “significant cuts” the district would have to make in a no-levy situation would impact programs offered at its schools.
“Every time I think about it, it scares me tremendously — the impact that it will have on our students, on the community and especially on our staff,” Waters said, noting the remaining employees would have to shoulder the burden left by cuts to staffing levels.
“The workload is not going to go down. The needs of our students are not going to go down, but the resources we have to meet those needs are going to be critically impacted,” Waters said.
