Our Business Services staff will brief the school board on our financial picture for the 2024-25 school year at a work session on Wednesday, March 6, from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m.
The work session is open to the public. The community is invited to attend or watch online.
Like school districts across our region, Highline faces a significant budget shortfall in the coming years. Revenue is down because we have declining enrollment, and we are at the end of our ESSER Covid relief funds. We face increasing costs for labor, utilities, insurance and other basic expenses.
We have identified $8 million in reductions for next school year, mostly to central office expenses in order to avoid direct cuts to schools. The cuts include:
- Eliminating 27 central office positions, including some unfilled positions.
- Reducing contracted services and travel for next year.
- Reviewing all open positions and not filling every position.
- Saving dollars that were budgeted this year but are not yet spent.
We are trying to insulate schools from cuts as much as possible, but we recognize there will be some impact to schools. Cuts to central office positions and services will affect the level of support we can provide to our schools.
Declining enrollment means many schools will face staffing adjustments based on numbers of students. Other reductions may not be avoidable.
Highline is not alone. Other districts are facing cuts this year—many of them will have to cut millions more than Highline.
We anticipate additional reductions over the next two years unless the state funding picture changes. We are working closely with our legislators to make improvements to state education funding.