Thursday, November 6, 2025
The post-legislative session budget update for the Olympia School District reflected an underlying funding gap estimated at $2,647,000.
At a board meeting on May 22, Executive Director of Business and Capital Projects Kate Davis broke down the situation.
“A year ago … we approved a budget that had an underlying assumption that we would use $2 million of our fund balance. We had already gone through two years of budget cuts … and so we dedicated $2 million of our fund balance, meaning that we were going to have our expenditures exceed our revenues by $2 million,” Davis said.
Davis explained projections show that expenses are predicted to exceed generated revenues by $2.6 million.
“There is a systemic underlying funding gap that we have to make up for. So it's almost like it's almost like being in debt that we got to come out of before we can celebrate some of those wins,” Davis said.
From the projected $7,539,084 ending fund balance for school year 2024-25, the estimated ending fund balance for 2025-26 is $6,044,830.
The district is still in the middle of the budget process, so projections will not be complete until June.
To mitigate risks, the report recommended the district should maintain adequate fund balance, avoid recurring financial commitments, track enrollment carefully, examine special education policies that may be driving up costs, ensure legal compliance and stay laser-focused on student outcomes.
Davis also discussed legislative items, including the levy authority adjustment and special education funding.
“Our levy authority is based on our per-pupil amount. This year, it is $3,247 per pupil. And next year that'll go up $500 per pupil, so $3,747.
Even if voters approved a higher amount for the levy, the state caps how much the district is allowed to collect.
The district anticipates about $2.5 million in the coming school year, which will go up to $5 million the following year.
“Fortunately, the last time we sought authority from our voters, we saw it significantly more than what the state was allowing us to do,” Davis said.
Levies are collected on a calendar year, so the district would only be collecting in April in the next school year.
For special education, the district anticipates receiving as much as $1.3 million. A total of $110,000 will also be sent to the Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction for their services.
The state has lifted the cap on how many students will be funded, and they are shrinking the "donut hole" as a safety net.
A donut hole is the phase where beneficiaries' out-of-pocket costs are high and the state funding does not cover a large portion of the costs.
“If you look at what's happening, a lot of state agencies, they're not getting any increase… So the fact that there were increases, we should be very grateful,” Superintendent Patrick Murphy said.
“The fact that the levy was lifted a little bit, which was not our first choice for how we wanted to get additional funding, because it shouldn't fall on individual communities when it's the paramount duty of the state, still grateful,” Murphy added.
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JohnGear
Gee, OSD financially stressed… who’dve thunk it?
https://www.thejoltnews.com/stories/olympia-schools-flunk-a-test-with-lp-brown-environmental-learning-place,20051?&comment_result=posted#comments-post
Saturday, May 31 Report this
Dogmom
Why is it the 1st thing the Gov't. & State agencies & Schools look to is how do they get more funding. How about looking to yourselves & figure out how to cut costs. The very first thing I would do is tie all administrators salaries to how well their Departments are operating, budget wise & services they r providing. Especially OSPI. Why are administrators for public schools making $200,000+ when they have such dismal records on every aspect of their jobs. A pet peeve of mine has always been how much money is spent on building or remodeling a school. Why can't there b standard designs based on ground soil, population & type of school instead of paying architects & engineers millions & millions of dollars to build everyone of them different. The Legislators are no different. They spend 1 time money & then expect taxpayers to continue to fund their wants. They could have cut millions, maybe billions on their spending sprees but, oh no, let's just make taxpayers allow them to continue their foolishness.
Monday, June 2 Report this
DudeInOlympia
Bingo, I knew John was going to link their article from last week
Monday, June 2 Report this