SEQUIM — The Sequim School District is planning to reduce next year’s budget by about $2.5 million compared with this year.
The district’s board of directors got their first look at a revenue and spending plan last week presented by outgoing finance director Darlene Apeland.
The budget draft of the 2024-25 academic year anticipates about $45.5 million in spending and $6.9 million in revenues, accounting for the loss of some COVID-era federal dollars, a more conservative approach to anticipated enrollment and a build back of the district’s general fund.
The district’s budget for the 2023-24 school year was about $48 million in spending and revenue.
The draft of the 2024-25 budget anticipates about 2,511 full-time-equivalent (FTE) students — 477 at Greywolf Elementary School, 490 at Helen Haller Elementary, 532 at Sequim Middle School, 732 at Sequim High School, 223 at Olympic Peninsula Academy and Dungeness Virtual School and 57 Running Start students — a figure about 100 FTEs less than anticipated in the 2023-24 budget.
“Last year we took an approach that was pretty assertive,” Superintendent Regan Nickels said, noting the district anticipated — and saw — a rebound in enrollment from the COVID-affected years but not as much as predicted.
“We’ve made the decision to be very conservative in enrollment,” she said.
The 2024-25 budget covers the fiscal year Sept. 1, 2024 through Aug. 31, 2025, and must be adopted by next month.
The board typically receives a budget draft proposal in July and adopts it in August, but Apeland said getting the process started earlier will help the overall budget process, as well as for the next finance director to handle when they are hired.
Nickels said the district is now spending about 77 percent of its local levy funds — about $7.7 million — to cover base salaries.
The district is budgeting for about $1.36 million in revenues over spending to rebuild its general fund balance to more than 5 percent of its overall budget; district policy requires the board strive to have between 4 percent and 6 percent of the budget in the general fund.
“This [budget] has required a lot of people making lots of sacrifice, including [people losing] their positions,” Nickels said.
The district is projecting a slight increase in enrollment for 2025-26 to 2,533 full-time-equivalent students (from 3,511) but a dip to 2,482 for 2026-27 and 2,447 for 2027-2028.
“Our enrollment continues to be a key element here,” Nickels said.
The 2024-25 draft budget predicts about $43 million in local and state revenues, including about $25.9 million in student FTE-based apportionment from the state along with $5 million in special education funding — and about $2.9 million in federal funding.
Salary and benefits in the ‘24-‘25 draft budget will cost the district about $37.2 million — $18.9 million for certificated salaries, $8.4 million for classified staffers and $9.7 million for benefits — accounting for about 82 percent of the budgeted expenditures.
The remaining spending, about $7 million, is divided mostly between contractual services ($4.9 million) and supplies and materials ($2.2 million).
The district also is expected to see an 18 percent increase in insurance costs.
“Honestly, that is typical with what other districts in our state are incurring,” Nickels said.
The district in recent years has had a number of settlements with former employees covered by insurance, which has increased the rate Sequim is charged each year.
“You still suffer the history [of those settlements],” Nickels said.
Facility improvements
• Board directors and staff recognized Carrie Johnson, who was was named Olympic Educational Service District’s Regional Classified Employee of the Year for 2023-24. Johnson is a paraeducator at Greywolf Elementary School.
• Lincoln Forrest, a junior in the 2024-25 school year, was selected as the new student representative. He’ll join incoming senior Ariana Salas in representing the students as advisors to board directors.
Forrest has held different leadership roles in school since the eighth grade, and he hopes to learn about the district from “many different angles” and is interested in pursuing a business degree, Nickels said.
• Board directors on June 17 heard from Cassie Hibbert of Wenaha Group, who gave an overview of activities of the district’s Long Range Facilities Planning (LRFP) group as they examine district needs as a possible prelude to future school facility improvements.
The 14-member group, a mix of district staff and administrators along with community members, will review building conditions and draft suggested improvements to take to the community for feedback before a recommendation to the board.
That information-gathering phase (phase 1) is happening now through June, with feedback from the community slated in phase 2 in October, with a possible board resolution, election filing and campaign slated for as early as December on phase 3.
The LRFP group is a recommending body only, Hibbert said. It cannot take a proposal to voters on its own.
“We really find it powerful for our committee members to actually get into the buildings and see things for themselves as part of forming their shared knowledge base,” Hibbert 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 michael.dashiell@sequimgazette.com.
