Spokane Public Schools approves $768 million budget, bracing for pullback in federal COVID support

Spokane Public Schools approved an over $768 million budget for the upcoming school year, including plans to spend what remains of federal emergency COVID funding.

At Wednesday’s school board meeting, directors voted unanimously to approve the spending plan, appropriating around $550 million for the general fund, over $130 million on capital projects, over $68 million to pay interests on bonds and $2.5 million on the Associated Student Body.

Expected state funding makes up the lion’s share of revenue in the general fund, around 69% or $387 million. The district expects to collect $78 million in local property taxes, an estimation on a ballot measure pending the school board’s approval and the voters’ endorsement in November. Federal funding makes up the next-largest portion: roughly $46 million in grants and the $31.5 million remainder of emergency COVID support.

Districts have until next September to spend emergency COVID funding from the federal government.

Spokane schools opted to spend their award largely on staffing and additional employees to reduce class sizes, improve equity of staff demographics and offer extra support for students. This year, the district budgeted around $13 million to pay staff from the $31.5 remainder of emergency funding.

Anticipating the conclusion of the federal assistance, Chief Financial Officer Cindy Coleman said the district established a strategy so the schools are prepared to face the cliff of losing emergency dollars, avoiding “chaos.”

Notably, as emergency funding sunsets and positions open in the district from retirements and resignations, administration reconfigures the source of employee pay so that staff previously paid through emergency funds are now paid from the district’s general fund, rather than hiring new staff to fill vacant roles.

“We may be reducing our staffing overall, but there are no layoffs,” Coleman said.

Superintendent Adam Swinyard said the district would be returning to pre-COVID employment levels. As the district adjusts to the withdrawal of federal funding, staff may be assigned to teach a different grade level, subject or in a different capacity in the district.

“Returning to the historic levels puts us in a position where we have a balanced budget and we’re not putting ourselves in a position where we’re laying off staff,” Swinyard said at Wednesday’s board meeting.

The district has budgeted for about the same number of staff as it employed last year, but more classified staff members to meet the demands in special education, preschool and the new Peperzak Middle School to open this year.

The district also spent COVID funding on new curriculum and technology for students, and is budgeting an approximate $5.5 million and $5 million, respectively, for the upcoming school year.

New curriculum reduces the burden on teachers without necessitating more support staff, Coleman said.

“They’re going to be using that to help the students rather than needing some of these other supports, but it was really we were trying to use the money to really make a change in how we did things,” Coleman said.

In the next budget cycle, student technology needs, like individual loaned laptops, will be met via dollars from the general fund through local taxes, rather than through bond measures like in some years passed.

“(Technology was) more of a desktop lab that you would go into and lasted longer,” Coleman said. “A portable device that you’re taking home because your curriculum’s on it, it gets a lot of wear and tear.”