Royal may face $330,000 in reductions

ROYAL CITY - The Washington State Legislature launched a special session last week to deal with a projected budget shortfall of about $1.4 billion in 2012, and school districts are waiting to see where the ax will fall.

One of the remedies proposed by Gov. Christine Gregoire, according to Royal Schools Superintendent Rose Search, is cuts in the levy equalization program.

However, Search said, Gregoire has thrown out several suggestions. Search is wondering if Gregoire has done that to stir discussion, or to be able say, after the cuts, "See, it wasn't as bad as we originally proposed."

The levy equalization program, created by the legislature decades ago, was designed to aid property-poor districts with subsidies. The intent was to give a student at Royal or Wahluke a fair shot at an education equal to that of a student on Mercer Island.

Land values on the Royal and Wahluke Slopes are nowhere near the values in western Washington. Levy equalization transfers money from that side of the state to this.

All that poor districts need to do to trigger the equalization is pass a local levy. Some districts receive equalizations in the millions of dollars. Now the program is threatened. Royal's next levy election will be in February.

Gregoire's proposal divides districts that receive equalization funds into three groups. One group would be cut 10 percent, the second group 25 percent and the third group 50 percent.

Royal School District has been placed in the 25 percent category for a cut of $330,000. If Gregoire's proposed cuts are approved, Search said the $330,000 loss would be felt severely. She said the district depends on its own levy collection and equalization funds to support programs that are not supported through basic education funding.

"We'd have to go through our list and see where to cut," she said.

On another fiscal front, the district has learned that the Tech Prep Program that Royal and all other Grant County School Districts enjoy may be on its last legs.

Tech Prep coordinator Rick Follett noted that Tech Prep, which is administered from Big Bend Community College, is supported by federal funding. That funding is adversely affected by the national economy and is starting to dry up.

Under the Tech Prep agreement, numerous Royal High School graduates have gotten a head start on college with credit from Big Bend for specific courses taken at Royal High.

While not likely, a Royal student could acquire a total of 49 CBCC credits before high school graduation. In 2010, Follett said, 93 Royal students earned 507 credits.

"These were at no cost to the students," Follett said.

According to Follett, funding for the program was cut for the current year. It has enough in reserves to "possibly make it to the end of this year."

Now it's a matter of waiting to see what will happen next year. Follett said all indications are that there will not be a program.