Monday night, the Oak Harbor School Board unanimously adopted a $114.13 million budget for what is expected will be a financially challenging school year.

As said by Board Member Jessica Aws during a meeting on Aug. 12, the district needs to advocate for fully funded education as there won’t be any pandemic relief funding coming to “save” them this time.

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, also known as “ESSER,” will expire in September, leaving many school districts around the country scrambling to make cuts to budgets that are already affected by what many see as an inadequate prototypical school funding model.

In total, according to the district’s website, Oak Harbor Public Schools received approximately $5 million in COVID-19 relief funds.

While the district had announced in April the possibility of cutting $3.8 million and eliminating 53 staff positions from the 2024-25 budget, nothing is set in stone. According to Communications Officer Sarah Foy and Superintendent Michelle Kuss-Cybula, the numbers change every day and attrition and reductions can happen over the course of the year.

Last year, the district approved cuts amounting to $5 million.

Kuss-Cybula and Foy said the district has to make staff reductions for a variety of reasons.

After the pandemic hit, the district hired extra classified staff members to support students during a time of unprecedented need. With the end of pandemic relief funding, this surplus has resulted in the budget being “well over” what the state allocates, the superintendent said.

Furthermore, Oak Harbor School District experiences particularly high attrition rates, Foy and Kuss-Cybula said. Many employees have family members and loved ones in the military. Once a sailor is transferred to a different station, families and partners tend to follow, with many leaving their jobs.

With people resigning so often, the district has to decide which positions to fill and which to eliminate. This can be even more challenging when enrollment numbers are also subject to change due to the military and other factors.

In an email, Foy wrote that the district will continue to work on plans and projections to determine where and how much the district needs to cut, if necessary.

“We would like to see what our enrollment looks like, as well as what changes to expect from the state budget,” she wrote.

To minimize trimmings, the district will use approximately $1.7 million in Impact Aid funds and cover expenses, Financial Officer Amber Porter said on Aug. 12. According to the district’s website, impact aid offsets some of the loss in property tax due to the fact it’s partially located on federal property.

The district is expected to make a total of $111.9 million in revenues, or over $2 million less than budgeted for expenditures. Both revenues and expenditures increased due to inflation, according to a budget presentation.

Additionally, they were bumped by $2.25 million for contingencies. That way, the district would be allowed to accept and spend unanticipated grant funding, or add classrooms and additional staff if some programs have stronger enrollment, Porter said.

On Aug. 12, board members were alarmed to learn that, on Aug. 5, the Office of the Washington State Auditor stated in a press release that “one measure of a government’s financial health is the number of days of operating expenses it holds in its general fund, which is ideally 60 days or more.”

Kuss-Cybula said in an interview she had never heard a state auditor set such a high standard, and was taken aback by it as it would represent a fund balance of 16.7%. In fact, she said, that wouldn’t even be possible to achieve by next year, unless the district violates class size agreements with certificated staff, eliminating more positions and stacking classes together.

“There’s no way that districts can cut that much,” she said.

Foy wrote that Porter will be meeting with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Auditor’s Office to determine if this a new recommended standard for school districts. Currently, Foy wrote, the school board establishes that the fund balance should be between 3 and 5% at minimum, which is close to 14 days of operating expenses.

The district will start the year with a beginning fund balance that is higher than anticipated, amounting to $9.5 million, which Foy said is estimated to be closer to a month of operating expenses.