A well-managed budget is key to delivering on our commitment to offering every student a quality education, safety, and resources for well-being. We take our responsibility seriously to spend our taxpayer dollars in a responsible way that helps us achieve our goals of healthy students, schools, and communities, ultimately strengthening our community.

We hope to offer visibility into these funding and spending details to better understand our funding sources, allocations, and range of programs and services provided to those in our district.

2023-24 Budget Development

For the last several years, our district has used fund balance to meet the demands of our ever-increasing costs. This school year, we are using $5M of reserves to mitigate the impacts of enrollment loss, dwindling COVID relief funds, and increased compensation.

It is unsustainable to rely on our reserves to balance the budget. As a result, we need to reduce staffing and non-staffing costs. The estimated range of budget cuts is $5-7M, representing about 5% of our expenses. Our plan, which is still in development, will include the central office, building administration, classified staff, and certificated staff. In order to minimize impacts on students, we will first focus reductions on the district office personnel, potential scheduling changes, and building administration.

Guiding Principles

These principles will help guide decisions, including reducing staff positions and programs. Each principle is just one lens; we acknowledge that some may create tension when put up against others.

  • We will continue to use Seeing and Serving EACH Student as a guide and filter.
  • We will reduce or delay non-employee-related costs first.
  • For each reduction, we will consider the impact on students, particularly those with the highest needs.
  • Whenever possible, we will use attrition and consider not replacing vacant positions.
  • We will look at our current initiatives; consider which are most impacting learning.
  • We will consider reductions that create closer alignment with the state’s prototypical school model.
  • We will focus on additional operational efficiencies and consider what the trade-off will be.
Resources

February 1, 2023, Initial Budget Message to Our Community

February 22, 2023, Budget Update to Our Community

March 8, 2023, Budget 101 Webinar Recording – Q & A Transcript – Presentation Slides

March 16, 2023, Budget ThoughtExchange – Summary Results Slides

March 31, 2023, Budget and Staffing Reductions Message  &  Video

April 12, 2023, Post Record article: Discovery High students react to district’s budget cuts

April 13, 2023, Central Office Reductions Message to Our Community