Superintendents and school board members from all seven Skagit County school districts told state elected officials during a virtual town hall that districts are underfunded by millions of dollars.
Over the last four years, districts have been collectively underfunded by $47 million for special education, $8 million for transportation, $22 million for materials and supplies, and $13 million for utilities and insurance, Mount Vernon Board President Larry Otos told legislators on Thursday, Dec. 5.
District superintendents all shared similar stories: Budget cuts have resulted in negative impacts on students’ access to education.
Otos said the state’s prototypical funding model “just doesn’t work anymore.”
Elected officials Rep. Sam Low (R-39), Rep. Carolyn Eslick (R-39), Rep. Clyde Shavers (D-10), a representative for Rep. Alex Ramel (D-40), and Senators Liz Lovelett (D-40) and Keith Wagoner (R-39) all attended the meeting.
They told school leaders that the challenging budget situation means there will need to be cuts to the state budget, but funding special education is a priority for the Legislature. The state is facing a projected $12 billion budget shortfall.
“This is going to be a tough, tough, tough year,” said Eslick, who serves on the House Education Committee. “My priority is the kids this year, whatever that’s going to look like, whatever form that takes.”
Low said education is the state’s “number one, paramount duty.”
“I think Olympia has added on a lot of things that aren’t our paramount duty,” he told the school leaders. “So yes, we need to make a lot of cuts, but we should not be making cuts in the schools.”
School officials said they’re feeling the impacts of the underfunding.
Anacortes School District Superintendent Justin Irish said the district had to cut back on librarians, and now only employs one part-time librarian, restricting access to libraries across the district. He spoke of a student who loves reading, who sees the library as her “sanctuary,” but the cuts have limited her access.
Irish said that despite the district cutting $5 million over the last two years, the district is facing $2 million more in reductions next year. This has resulted in diverting resources from students to “operational necessities,” he said.
“Fiscal responsibility alone cannot address the challenges of inadequate state funding,” he said.
For Burlington-Edison School District, declining enrollment and funding challenges have led to a consequential vote this coming Monday: The district is in the process of closing an elementary school and repurposing it as an Early Learning Campus.
“This is, as you can imagine, a pretty traumatic experience for our community,” Superintendent Chris Pearson said. “… So the stories that you hear from around the state, they’re happening right here in Skagit County.”
La Conner School District’s Interim Superintendent Dave Cram spoke about the district’s challenges with rising insurance costs, while Sedro-Woolley Superintendent Miriam Mickelson said transportation is their most essential issue: she said the district’s buses cover “vast distances every day,” and students, especially those experiencing housing insecurity, rely on the district to provide them with safe and consistent transport to school.
In the Mount Vernon School District, Executive Director of Finance Jennifer Larson said a rare strike in August had lasting impacts on relationships and trust within the district and with the community. She said that strike was directly connected to insufficient state funding.
She said the district and the striking workers shared the same interest: “We want to pay them competitive wages.”
“Our problem is our funding doesn’t support it,” Larson said. “… When you’re in that situation, you have to choose between staff and students, because that’s really what you’re doing. You have the same amount of money, you have to make choices.”
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
