Camas SD budget survey open through Nov. 6

The Camas School District’s “Balancing the Budget” survey, collecting public input on the district’s need to make 10-12% budget cuts ahead of the 2025-26 school year, is live online and available to the public through Wednesday, Nov. 6. “Your input is invaluable as we develop budget proposals for the school board,” Camas School District Superintendent John Anzalone stated on the District’s website, adding that the online survey shares information about the District’s current budget scenario and asks community members to share their priorities for the school district. The school district is facing a budget shortfall of more than $7 million revenue shortfall and a general fund balance that CSD leaders have described as “critically low” ahead of the 2025-26 school year. Earlier this week, during the Camas School Board’s regular meeting on Monday, Oct. 28, Anzalone and the district’s business director, Jasen McEathron, shared enrollment and budget updates with the Board and community members. Anzalone said the district is seeing lower-than-expected enrollment at the kindergarten and lower-elementary grades, as well as in preschool grades. “For the first time in years, we’ve not seen a waiting list (for the district’s preschool programs),” Anzalone said, adding that the district’s biggest enrollment problem is not the number of students who are leaving, but rather the lower number of students coming into the school district, which means fewer per-student revenues from the state. Anzalone said there are a few variables impacting CSD’s budget issues, including a decline in Washington state birth rates, which he said has decreased by more than 22% over the past 15 years; increased costs of doing business as a school district, including not just an increase in salaries and benefits for employees but also what Anzalone said is a 60% increase in insurance rates 2020, a 37% increase in electricity costs since 2018, a 33% increase in milk prices since 2018 and a 39% increase in diesel fuel — needed for the district’s school buses — since 2018; and high housing costs in Camas, where the median listing price for a home is currently $950,000, which Anzalone described as “extremely concerning.” The increased costs, lower enrollment rates, less money coming from the state, the end of COVID-relief funds from the federal government and years of using general fund savings — also known as the “fund balance” — to help balance the budget, has culminated in a budget shortfall and need to cut costs. “The challenge is trying to get our expenses equal to or less than our revenues,” Anzalone said Monday. The superintendent added that divisiveness in the community would not help the school district balance its budget. “We can continue to advocate as a community,” Anzalone said. “The energy around this being divisive is wasted energy. This really needs to go to the state (legislators), who are making these decisions … Following the election on Nov. 5, we really need to let our legislators know our story.” Camas School Board President Corey McEnry added that, although state revenues have grown over the years, the state’s percentage of funding for K-12 schools has decreased. McEathron, the district’s business director, said the school district will end the 2024-25 school year with an historically low general fund balance. “In August 2025, we’re looking at less than 3% fund balance,” McEathron said. “This is a critically low level and this is why we’re not only doing cuts for next year, but also (implemented) cuts for this year and are looking for opportunities to curtail costs even more this year.” McEathron added that the school district “will be in this mode until (it) can get to a sustainable level.” “We have to turn a corner on this structural deficit,” McEathron said, “and then look at true operations.” McEathron added that structural deficits — in which a school district’s revenues cannot keep up with its costs of doing business — tend to get worse over time without some sort of solution. “If left unaddressed, (a structural deficit) tends to grow,” McEathron said. The school district plans to not only make between 10% and 12% worth of budget cuts ahead of the 2025-26 school year to balance its budget, but also to restore its general fund balance to a sustainable level, McEathron said, which means it would have enough cash on hand to cover expenses during months when revenues from the state have not yet rolled in and have funds left over to cover emergency costs. The Camas School Board plans to discuss setting a minimum fund balance percentage in its policies and could adopt a new policy during its regular meeting in December. The majority of Board members agreed Monday that including a number in the district’s minimum fund balance policy is needed. “It (will) be a tough road building that fund balance up again,” Board member Connie Hennessey said Monday. “I think we need a goal.” Board member Tracey Malone agreed. “I think we should put it in policy,” Malone said Monday, referring to a minimum fund balance percentage. “At 3% we could struggle paying bills. … Our fund balance now is down to 3% assigned and unassigned, which makes that number even more alarming.” Board member Bamini Pathmanathan said she believes having a minimum percentage number in the district’s general fund balance policy would help guide Board members and district leaders during the budget process. “Having a number just keeps us focused,” Pathmanathan said Monday. “The fund balance is really about managing current and future risk,” Board member Matthew McBride said. “We can’t have it go down to 1%, that’s clear.” McBride added that “even governments have to have savings available for current and future risks.” “Otherwise,” he said, “we run ourselves into a deficit on credit.” To learn more about the Camas School District’s budget process and revenue shortfall, or to find a link to the online budget priorities survey available through Wednesday, Nov. 6, and to the district’s Oct. 22 town hall, visit camas.wednet.edu/news/balancing-our-budget-survey.

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