The Blaine school board held a special meeting on July 23 to discuss the proposed 2024-25 budget before voting to ratify in its next meeting on August 26.
The budget shows the Blaine School District earning $40.3 million in total revenue for its general fund, mostly from $21.4 million in state funding and $6.5 million in local taxes, and ending the year with a $2.9 million ending balance, larger than the 2023-24 balance.
This budget is the first since the pandemic that the district won’t receive a dime of special purpose funding from the federal government after receiving millions in Covid-era stimulus.
Amber Porter, the district’s former chief financial officer who now works on a contracted basis, presented the 225-page budget report to the board, painting a positive, yet conservative, picture of the district’s financial outlooks.
Per state law, school districts must produce a four-year budget forecast that includes a four-year enrollment projection. In recent years, enrollment has dipped across the school district, from a recent high of 2,220.48 full-time equivalent (FTE) students in 2019-20, to a budgeted count of 1,944.9 FTE students for the upcoming 2024-25 school year.
Porter said birthrates in Whatcom County are showing a general slowing down in recent years, meaning the district’s enrollment numbers could continue to dwindle.
According to birthrate data from the Washington State Department of Health, there has been a slight downtrend in total number of births in Whatcom County even as the county’s population continues to rise, with 1,955 births in 2022 compared to 2,364 in 2015.
“We’re not sure if we’re at the bottom of an enrollment decline,” Porter said. “If it does continue, we have to recognize that the larger classes of older students in older grades, as they graduate off, they’re being replaced by smaller kindergarten classes.”
With fewer students, fewer state dollars come into the district’s general fund, and staff layoffs become inevitable. The district employed 162.43 FTE certificated employees in 2022-23, and the budget now has 136.3 FTE certificated employees for the 2024-25 school year.
Even with a kindergarten class budgeted at a conservative 105 students, and pandemic-era federal stimulus funds all dried up, the four-year outlook for the school district isn’t as dire as others in the state, Porter said. The district being able to maintain a positive fund balance by the fourth year of its forecast is a sign of good financial health, Porter said.
“Not seeing a negative number by year four of the forecast means were really much more balanced,” Porter said. “So congratulations, because not every district can say that.”
To view the proposed 2024-25 budget, visit bit.ly/3WaB1fy.
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