Draft school budget ready for viewing

The La Conner School Board has scheduled a study session for 5:30 p.m. Monday on the draft of the district’s 2016-2017 school year budget.

For people who would like to look it over, the draft budget, which shows projected revenues of about $10.1 million in the district’s operating fund, has been posted on the school district’s website, http://lcsd.wednet.edu.

After a proposed levy totaling nearly $1.5 million failed in February, the district held a series of public workshops on the budget, figuring places to trim. Voters approved a $995,000 levy in April.

The citizen budget workshops resulted in two sports, golf and wrestling, on the chopping block, as well as cutbacks in several programs. Also, there will be no new computers for students this year.

In total the equivalent of nearly five full-time teaching and administrative positions are gone and the equivalent of nearly four non-teaching positions were trimmed. The teaching staff cuts were made through attrition – retirements and resignations.

The draft budget shows about $321,000 fewer local property tax dollars anticipated, but the upcoming year’s budget revenues are projected to be only about $119,000 smaller than last year’s.

That is because the district expects to receive about $397,000 more from the state than last year, but most of that money must be spent on salaries.

At the same time the draft budget reflects an expected drop of $360,000 in federal funding “impact aid,” which is to help offset the cost of educating children on federal lands the district cannot tax – in La Conner’s case, land held in trust for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

About two thirds of La Conner’s roughly 600 students live on land that cannot be taxed, including in the Shelter Bay community, most of which was developed on leased tribal land.

In 2015 following a federal appellate court ruling, 931 parcels for structures built on leased tribal land were removed from the county tax rolls and the Swinomish Tribe began taxing those structures.

The tribe has agreed to donate $450,000 of the roughly $2 million in property taxes it stands to collect to help the school budget shortfalls this year and donated $400,000 last year from its tax proceeds last year, but there were still shortfalls that were passed on to the remaining taxpayers in the district.

The tribe’s contribution will help shore up the upcoming budget. But in 2015, some homeowners saw their property tax bills jump by more than 20 percent followed by another 6 percent hike in 2016. The ensuing tax revolt caused a school levy to fail for the first time in La Conner history.

The school board will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget at 5 p.m. on July 25, when it is expected to be adopted.

That is anticipated to be the final meeting for School Board President Rick Thompson, a 20-year board veteran who’s been trying to retire for more than year, but promised to stay on to shepherd through the upcoming budget.