FORKS — Quillayute Valley School District officials, faced with declining enrollment, plan to cut staff through attrition.
The plan is to reduce staff by not replacing staff members who are resigning, said Superintendent Diane Reaume in a news release.
This reduction will not come entirely from one group of employees, rather across the board, she said.
“Our intent is to keep every instructional program, extra-curricular program, and operational support system intact,” Reaume said.
“It will be tricky, but I think we will figure out how to make it all work with little disruption to our programs,” she added.
Throughout the past decade, brick and mortar schools in Forks have held on to an average of 1,050 students with the 2016-17 year enrollment ending at 1,037 students, the superintendent said.
Over the course of the current school year, Forks’ schools have lost an average of 40 students in grades kindergarten through 12th.
“This is the first time we have seen our numbers dip below 1,000. Our full-time equivalent (FTE) count at the end of April was 996 students,” Reaume said.
“The loss of 40 students equates roughly to $400,000.
“We have never seen a steady pattern as such and are anticipating to lose approximately the same amount in 2018-19 for a total of 80-100 over the two-year span.
“This decline in enrollment equates to approximately $800,000 to $1,000,000 in permanent lost revenue.”
One of the other indicators of a loss of revenue is the eroding of the district’s undesignated and unreserved funds (or “rainy day funds”) in the general fund, she said.
The district is obligated to maintain a 5 percent minimum undesignated and unreserved funds of the overall budget.
Repairs and the purchase of technology have been put on hold for the current school year to meet the minimum fund balance.
“We will be transitioning to a new funding system with the new legislation,” Reaume said.
“We are working on crunching the numbers. Of course, there are still many moving variables with the biggest being the new teacher salary schedule which must be bargained. However, declining enrollment and the new funding formula are two separate issues that will affect our overall funding.”
