By Michael Dashiell
Olympic Peninsula News Group
SEQUIM — Sequim School Board members have approved a budget for 2017-18 that appropriates about $35 million for the district’s general fund.
The board approved the budget Monday.
The next school year’s budget raises a cause for concern, said Heidi Hietpas, Sequim School District executive finance director, in a review of the budget proposal Aug. 17.
Hietpas said the district incurred a number of unexpected expenditures in 2016-17 that reduced the carry-over of district general funds to less than $2 million, and about $1.5 million is budgeted for the coming school year.
“What I have seen is that there was a rollover [of costs]. Something has to change. Decisions were made without knowing what the state budget would look like,” she said.
While overall revenues are increasing in Sequim and other school districts across the state, Hietpas said costs such as staff retirement and salaries are increasing as well.
About $28.5 million, or 82 percent of Sequim’s budget, is spent toward salaries and benefits, Hietpas said — with most districts in the state at 80 percent to 85 percent.
“The largest increase is in benefits,” Hietpas said.
School board member Robin Henrikson asked what could be done to build back the general fund, and Hietpas noted that Sequim has not asked for the maximum amount from local taxpayers during Educational Programs &Operations (EP&O) levy proposals.
“Having a healthy fund balance is valuable and, I think, prudent,” Hietpas said.
If a roof collapses, Sequim’s current general fund isn’t healthy enough to handle it, she said.
The budget also includes a $3.7 million capital projects fund that pays for remodeling of the district kitchen and removal of a portion of Sequim Community School.
Voters approved a three-year capital projects levy in February to pay for the deconstruction of the unused portion of the community school. Built in 1949, the school was shuttered in 2012 because it was found to be unsafe for students.
Taking down that portion gives the school district access to $4.3 million in state matching funds for new construction.
“There are a number of facility needs that are coming up,” Hietpas said. “That is typically the area that gets cut first in balancing a budget.”
“This is what we have to work with,” said Jim Stoffer, school board legislative representative.
He said approving a budget for the district is one of two important aspects of their job as board members, the first being a responsibility to students.
“We don’t take the responsibility lightly,” Stoffer said.
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Michael Dashiell is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. Reach him at editor@sequimgazette.com.
