ML schools propose $107.4M budget

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake School District is proposing a $107.4 million operating budget for the upcoming school year.

The proposed budget was released during the Moses Lake School Board’s last meeting.

The board will have two weeks to consider the proposed budget and make changes before moving to pass it at its next meeting on Aug. 24.

The $107.4 million operating budget covers teaching, maintenance, and administration of the district’s 15 schools — 10 elementary schools, three middle schools, a high school and the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center.

On the revenue side, the $107.4 million operating budget comes from $17.5 million in local taxes (the M&O levy, which will come up for renewal in early 2018), $81.7 million from Olympia ($65.6 million in general purpose and $16.1 million in special purpose state funding), and $6.9 million in “special purpose” funding from the federal government.

On the expenditure side, the largest single budget item is salaries, benefits and payroll taxes for administrators, teachers, and staff is $85.3 million, or 79 percent of the district’s entire operating budget for 2017-2018.

Broken down by program, the school is budgeting $61.6 million for regular instruction, $12.3 million for special education, $2.8 million for vocational instruction, and $1.8 million for teaching at the skills center.

The district is expecting to teach 8,610 students in the 2017-2018 school year, and is expecting more students in nearly all grades in comparison with class sizes in the previous two years.

The district is also budgeting for 573 certified teachers in the upcoming school year, up from 550 in the current school year, and 373 classified employees, up from 358 this year.

In addition to an operating budget, the district has also proposed a capital budget of $17.8 million, a transportation budget of $720,000, and a debt service budget of $4.2 million.

The debt service budget assumes revenue of $3.9 million (from the district’s current construction bond levies) and expenditures — payments to bond holders — of roughly $4.2 million, with the shortfall to come from money already sitting in the bond fund.

The $17.4 million capital budget — the proposed budget reveals a capital projects fund of $42.6 million — includes $5.5 million to begin remodeling work on Moses Lake High School, $4.9 million on the new elementary school, and $4.2 million in work on the district’s proposed second high school.

According to district communications coordinator McKenna Reis, the $42.6 million in the capital budget is projected from the sale of the first tranche (portion) of bonds, part of the $135 million construction bonds approved by voters in February.

The bond measure, which passed by just two votes, was subject to a recount and a dispute over the veracity of the vote counting process by the county auditor, is currently before a state Appeals Court in Spokane.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.