PORT ANGELES — The planned elimination of subsidized transit bus rides for students to attend the North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center could put the center on a rocky road toward oblivion.
That’s the fear of some skills center students, their parents and even School Board members following the decision to eliminate $7,000 worth of bus vouchers as part of attacking a $66,000 budget deficit.
If students from as far away as Sequim and the West End can’t ride the bus to get to the skills center on the west side of Port Angeles, it could worsen an enrollment crisis that led to the budget deficit in the first place, they say.
“Our budget is tight right now with . . . enrollment where it’s at,” said Clyde Rasmussen, skills center director.
The cuts, proposed by Rasmussen, were approved last month by the superintendents of Sequim, Port Angeles, Quillayute Valley, Cape Flattery and Crescent school districts — the consortium which along with Peninsula College created the center in 2002 as a career training institute for young adults.
Package of budget cuts
Curtailing bus vouchers is part of a package of cuts that includes a reduction in field trips for culinary arts students and cuts in classroom supplies that amount to a total savings of $33,118.
The amount of state funding it receives hinges on whether Olympia considers the facility at Eighth and B streets a “skills center” or just a “vocational cooperative,” said Jim Jones, executive director for business and operations for the Port Angeles School District.
The skills center budget is separate from the school district’s budget, but Port Angeles is the acting financial agent for it.
With skills center status, North Olympic receives about $490 more per student from the state, Jones said, but it has to meet a minimum full-time equivalent enrollment of 150 students per semester.
When the skills center opened its second building at the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year, the state granted a one-year waiver from the minimum enrollment requirement.
When the center fell short of the minimum by just 1.5 full-time equivalent students at the end of the school year in June, the state agreed to continue the higher level of funding on a probationary basis.
At the time, full-time equivalent enrollment for this term was projected to be at 180 students.
Jones said the projection was based on steady enrollment increases over the past eight years.
77 students short
However, actual enrollment this semester has fallen short by about 77 students, meaning the skills center may have to pay back thousands of dollars in probationary funds the state granted.
The skills center’s full-time equivalent enrollment for the spring semester will have to be 197 students or greater to make up for the low enrollment of the fall semester, Jones said.
“Unfortunately, the kids just haven’t shown up, and we’ve had overhead expense and costs that are far in excess of the number of students we’re going to get,” Jones said.
