Yakima school superintendent responds to community questions about budget cuts

It’s been a rocky budget season for the Yakima School District this year.

The district is making $20 million in cuts to balance its budget in light of declining enrollment and the loss of pandemic-era federal education funding. The cuts have affected 138 district employees, though many have been offered other positions in the district.

Critics of the cuts have taken issue with spending on administration and questioned decisions to downsize programs like the district’s virtual academy.

Yakima school Superintendent Trevor Greene sat down with the Yakima Herald-Republic and responded to some of the questions community members have asked since the cuts were first announced. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Will the Yakima School District need to make more budget cuts next year?

Greene: What you’ve seen around the state is there are districts that are making cuts across multiple years and that’s because we have 296 districts in the state and they’re all under local control and they have different priorities.

When we’re talking about the Yakima School District, the impact that has really been felt this year is rapidly being mitigated as we have a recall process underway. We had 52 staff members brought back yesterday (April 24). So when it’s reported that we’re cutting or firing 100 people, that is very inaccurate because you can only determine the numbers of the personnel impact after a RIF (reduction in force) and recall process.

However, we do know that it impacts individuals and one staff member is too many because you’re impacting the life of an individual.

So when you’re talking about then multiple years, we have seen a decline in enrollment over multiple years. It is anticipated to continue.

The Yakima Herald has published that there were some districts that have been able to absorb positions through attrition. That (also happened in the Yakima School District this year) and will be our first approach as we move forward. So we can expect if enrollment continues to decline, then we will no longer need as many adult services or adults in the system in positions to support a lesser number and that’s just the way that the business world works.

I know that people don’t like to associate education with business but we do have to operate and we do have to have funds that cover the costs. So at this point, the first approach would be to continue to consider attrition. We have already reduced programmatically. We are, I would say, razor thin at the administrator level, contrary to a popular narrative out there. We’re in the bottom 13% of (administrative) overhead in our state.

There are multiple facets to running a district, especially with the complexity of the Yakima School District. So when you’re talking about 15,000 students and there is some obvious decline in that, we also have one of the largest special education student populations, certainly in the area.

We spend roughly around $39 million a year (on special education), and that is about $10 million short of what we receive from the state. So if we had equitable funding, if we had full funding in special education alone, then we wouldn’t even be talking about cuts.

Really, the narrative should be around the lack of the Legislature to live up to its paramount duty, which is to fully fund education.

Depending on then, a continued decline, I can’t rule out any possibility. What we’re doing is managing a system; having it branded as mismanagement is the exact opposite of what is happening, which is clear managing to avoid going into binding conditions or going into the red, which has already happened with four of our districts in the state.

Have there been discussions around reducing administrative salaries or benefits?

Greene: So when there is a conversation reducing salaries of administrators, we have 10 unions in the Yakima School District and they all have a negotiated process, they all have representation and only through working with their negotiated process is that actually implemented.

If the principals union did come forth and say, “This is what we would suggest in order to not reduce positions,” then that would be a conversation that we would entertain. Far be it from a Draconian practice being implemented where we’re saying, “You will do this and take this cut.”

The right thing to do is to make sure people are involved in that process. We have a wonderful negotiated process that we’re using right now for the RIF and recall that has actually paid off and seen many members brought back into the fold.

We’re a lot better off than has been depicted, both by members of the community but also then I would say by the media.

When we do reduce positions, that work goes somewhere, and so people are working much more, they have to become much more adept at prioritization and you’re looking at potentially longer hours, you’re looking at more stress. When that happens, there is either a trade-off of, do we sacrifice in a monetary issue to keep more or do they even come back and say, “With the added responsibilities, we merit an increase,” which rightfully, an argument could be made.

But again, that’s not for me to decide; there are so many complexities. There are very few districts that have even close to the number of unions that we have here in Yakima and that does add another complexity. …

We involved all of our partners super early, really early in this process. This has been planned out since summer, with who we’re going to communicate in the unions, and with membership and the emails that have gone out, it’s been clearly delineated. So there is not the confusion that there seems to be now.

I think the lesson that we’re taking from all this is there is always an opportunity for more communication. That’s an opportunity for us to figure out how some members of different bargaining units didn’t cue in on exactly what was happening.

Is there a long-term plan for adapting the district to declining enrollment or increasing enrollment through outreach?

Greene: In the formal sense of a multiyear strategy, that has not been officially put together in a final format. When we’re going through the situation that we are right now, there are different kinds of elevated priorities and this one right now is certainly around notification and RIF and recall process, which doesn’t mean that won’t take place moving into the summer.

Have there been conversations? I would say very intent and professional conversations and ideas around what we can do, I would say absolutely. …

This crisis is also another opportunity for us to assess where we are and what we’re doing moving forward. I do think that we need to be careful about thinking that bigger is better. I’ve been part of smaller districts and smaller districts do exceptional work and they are very nimble and mobile in the changes that they made.

So when you’re looking at a decline of enrollment, yes we want to know why and if people are leaving because of something we’re doing or something that public education as a whole is doing or not doing to better serve people.

But also we have to look at the opportunities of as we potentially condense in size – does that create advantages that we didn’t have previously.

Those conversations will continue to take place and I think that the added emphasis on all of this is not necessarily around that formalized plan on paper but an elevated expectation of maybe the community, but of professionals themselves to mobilize and unify working with the Legislature to elevate the full funding of public education.

What I would love to see is a partnership hand-in-hand with this that are feeling the pain we’re all feeling and move forward to Olympia and share the stories and the narratives of how it impacts them personally and what we can do to make a change.

What is the future of YSD’s online school program, especially given its merger with Stanton Academy? What about the K-8 virtual academy building being put for lease?

Greene: So we are putting out the upper level of that building for rent but we are also maintaining the bottom portion of the building and we’re doing that because we know that the opportunity to expand still exists.

As we build our K-8 online school down below and our home school co-op, we know that that expansion is necessary and that certainly is a way to bring additional income into the district.

So as we grow, we know that we can grow into that facility and we have a place that is very welcoming and accessible to our community. That was an intentional look at how we can do business better, operate more efficiently and bring in additional income beyond what the state, federal and local levels provide?

As far as the merger of now our secondary online program and our Open Doors Program (Stanton), we will have the four portables over behind YV-Tech that will become accessible for expansion for that facility as they move in with more career and tech education opportunities which is exciting.

Again, taking advantage of challenges and turning challenges into opportunities, the merger is something that is very exciting because what that now does is it puts under one facility, multiple programs serving our students at a time when they’re searching for options versus a standard way of operating.

It consolidates all of that programming into one building which again reduces the number of administrators that are needed to operate a system. We become more efficient and we give more pathways, we become more nimble and responsive to the needs of our community and it’s a great thing that has happened by virtue of assessing all our programmatic options during this time of reductions.

Can you explain your decision to hire on more administrators in recent years, specifically the decision to hire dedicated legal counsel for the district?

Greene: So when you talk about administrative increase post-pandemic, it’s not just administration, it’s collectively across the board.

I think what some people conveniently leave out of the narrative is that we had a pandemic and there was this cry nationwide, certainly statewide, and regionally, for additional supports when students were coming back into a system lacking social skills in some cases, definitely having academic gaps and what we’ve seen with mental health, is the supports were not at the level that they are now.

When you have a greater need of supporting students, then that does require an increase across the system. We’ve elevated, more so than what we’re saying administrators, there’s been a tremendous commitment to support counselors, safety and security as well as staffing with our teachers.

We have certainly lived in the golden age of staffing post-pandemic and part of that is having the additional funding coming at the federal level to be able to support students during that time.

But now that is sunsetting and that will happen in September 2024. Any expenditures we have related to ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding is encumbered at this point, so that’s all spent.

Now that we’ve provided those supports, it’s now time to recalibrate and trust and assess and believe that over the last two years of being full-time back in session, that the supports we have provided have benefited our educators at all levels and more importantly our students and community.

Now, our funding is different. We’ve seen a tremendous increase in inflation. We know that those issues continue to grow. We’ve seen growing inequities in the way schools are funded across our state and all for those have a part to pay in defining enrollment.

So when you’re talking about the position of an attorney, that position was added pre-pandemic. That was a very easy addition.

The cost savings of having an attorney on staff more than pays for itself. So when I came into the district, I was asked if I was going to bring in legal counsel. We did run an assessment on our legal expenditures prior to my arrival and we were spending well over $1.2 million a year just on legal costs.

So to bring in an attorney full-time, have them be very familiar with our city, our community, with the challenges that we see and knowing that any school district of this size is certainly a target and should be held accountable when there are things that are missed or done incorrectly, that we would need legal counsel to work through that.

We’re happy to say that the investment we made on behalf of the community in our chief legal counsel, Bob Noe, has saved our district hundreds of thousands of dollars in the five years that he’s been here and will continue to be a great benefit to out community and to our district.

Could you or the board have taken a more proactive approach during and after the pandemic to prepare for these financial issues?

Greene: You’re asking me to look in the mirror and I think that I would be a woefully arrogant leader that could look back and say that they have completely operated in 100% accuracy. That’s the benefit of hindsight.

Do I feel like we have communicated consistently and clearly? I do believe we have. Do I recognize that not everyone is fully aware or fully understands the intricacies of public education and the funding thereof? Definitely not (everyone is aware).

Those will continue to be opportunities for us moving forward to assess how we can continue to message.

The other challenge is, in a time where the urgency isn’t as elevated as what we see right now, there is less of an interest in the community to actively scrutinize what is happening.

We can only control what we do and we will continue to assess and be as proactive as we can be and learn from all the lessons we have taken in this time. I hope that we will not need them again.

I’m very satisfied with the way that we have managed where we are and the choices that we have made and I think that continual communication will be something that any organization can work on until 100% of the people, 100% of the time, know exactly what’s happening, which is a daunting challenge.