The South Whidbey School Board recently approved the budget for the 2024-25 school year, authorizing the district to spend up to $22.4 million and to eliminate band for fifth graders and some staffing positions through attrition.

The budgeted revenues amount to $21.7 million, a smaller amount than the expenditures as revenues have not been increasing at the same rate as costs.

To make up the difference between revenues and expenditures (both of which also have an additional $250,000 budgeted for capacity), the district is reducing expenses and using funds from the over $4 million fund balance, according to the budget and an email sent by Superintendent Josephine Moccia.

In a text, Board President Brook Willeford explained that the district is “carefully” spending the reserve funds to make it last and “slow the pace of those cuts as long as possible.”

By eliminating band for fifth graders, the district is reducing Chris Harshman’s job from a 1.2 full-time position to a 1.0 so that he can focus on the middle and high school students, Willeford wrote in an email.

When facing financial challenges, districts are forced to prioritize required offerings — such as PE — over opportunities that are not required, Moccia explained on July 24. In many other districts, band starts in the sixth grade. Furthermore, fifth graders will still receive music opportunities through other specialist classes, she added.

For example, it is by making these cuts that the district can keep kindergarten class sizes small by recruiting a third teacher, Moccia said. Two years ago, as pointed out by Board Member Joe Greenheron, parents complained about the large size of kindergarten classes.

“We think we’re providing a robust program based on the budget that we have in place,” Moccia said at the meeting.

Still, the superintendent invited community members to set up an after school program. In the past, the district has had volunteer art docents, so this wouldn’t be the first initiative of its kind.

According to information presented by Director of Finance Paul Field, staff salaries and benefits represent 82% of total costs, the largest share of the district’s expenditures.

All staff reductions occurred through attrition, an accomplishment Moccia and Willeford said they were pleased with.

The reductions include the assistant principal and athletic director position held by Paul Lagerstadt, according to an email sent by Willeford. John Sommer, a teacher on special assignment, will take up the athletic director responsibilities.

Other positions eliminated include a technician, four teachers, three temporary teachers, the library clerk, two paraeducators, two temporary paraeducators and the Alternative Learning Experience secretary.

Since the director of special education left in 2023, this role has been absorbed into the superintendent’s responsibilities for no additional salary, Moccia wrote in an email, and this continues to remain the same in the 2024-25 school year. The additional special education duties were covered by two teachers on special assignment, who will be reduced to one the coming school year.

Back in April, former Assistant Superintendent of Business and Operations Dan Poolman said revenues have been “staying flat” as they only increased by 3.55% since the 2018-19 school year.

Like many districts around the state, South Whidbey is dealing with the rising cost of insurance, salaries, benefits and utilities as well as declining enrollment, the end of pandemic relief funds, declining enrollment and the controversial prototypical school funding model.

For example, according to information presented at recent budget discussions, health care insurance has increased by $963 per person — 60% since 2020, according to the Washington Association of School Administrators, or WASA.

According to WASA, the average cost of electricity has increased by 37% since 2018. The average salary of teachers rose by 61% since 2018, while state funding has only increased by less than 18%.

The experience factor, which increases funding for school districts with teachers that are more experienced and qualified than the state average, went from 2% to 1% and will disappear next year, according to information provided via email by Board President Brook Willeford.

Regionalization, which provides additional funds to school districts with high property values, has been going down by 2% each year and is now at 18%, despite the rise in property values, according to Willeford and the budget presentation.

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund — also known as “ESSER” — is a pandemic-era federal program that provides temporary financial relief to schools, and is set to expire in September.

On the bright side, while the state underfunds special education in the district, Willeford is grateful to the legislature for increasing the percentage of special education students receiving additional funding. According to the presentation, the special education cap was increased from 15% to 16%. This, in addition to the voter-approved Educational Programs and Operations levy, will allow for all of the district’s 180 special education students to be fully funded, Willeford wrote.

The state, he wrote, underfunds special education by $944,829 out of a total of $3,701,098 in costs.

While facing financial challenges, the district is one of seven school districts that are not in the Educational Service District 189’s financial watchlist, which includes Coupeville, Oak Harbor and 33 other school districts in the region.