The Anacortes School District may have to make up to $450,000 in additional cuts to the budget after an unexpected drop in enrollment.

The district budgeted for a significant decrease in enrollment — but in the first month of school 67 fewer full-time equivalent students showed up. That’s a drop of nearly 148 FTE from September 2007 to this September.

“We’ve known we were going to have enrollment numbers go down and we built the budget that way, just not enough,” said Superintendent Chris Borgen.

The district has 2,638 full-time equivalent students, down 5.3 percent from last September.

District leaders said they couldn’t have predicted the huge drop.

“We picked a number with the data at hand,” said Cindy Simonsen, director of learning and instruction.

The School Board discussed what to do about the enrollment drop at its meeting Thursday night.

“This is not a drop we could have looked at any of these averages and predicted,” Simonsen said while showing the board enrollment figures over the past 11 years.

The board approved putting together a finance committee of board members and other district leaders to determine what to do next. Meetings could start as early as this week.

Borgen said the district will do its best to maintain programs and continue to make cuts away from students and the classroom as it deals with the enrollment drop.

“This is manageable,” he said. “We can find a way to get the cuts we need to.”

Savings could by found by locking in the staffing numbers, looking at purchasing and even dipping further into the district’s 5 percent cash reserve.

Borgen said district leaders will need to addresses the budget shortfall carefully.

“It’s not just a one year picture to us. We also have to think what are we going to do now and how does that affect the three- to five-year planning,” he said.

The good news is enrollment numbers generally increase in October — when the state does the official count for budget purposes. District leaders are hoping for a boost so the budget, which is based on the average enrollment during the school year, takes less of a hit.

The enrollment drop comes at a time when the School District is already strapped for funding. The board approved a $28.5 million 2008-2009 budget in August after district officials made about $500,000 in cuts.

The cuts were driven by the expected decline in enrollment, cost of living raises, increases in fuel and food costs and more unfunded state mandates.

To make up the funds, the district opted to dip into its cash reserve and increase food prices, facility use fees, athletic fees and education enrichment fees that include areas like the After School Arts Program.

The district has also reduced staffing through attrition and retirement, reduced co-curricular activities based on student participation and is looking for alternative funding sources.

So far this year, the district has seen double-digit drops in the number of high school students compared to what it budgeted for as well as significant drops in upper elementary grades.

Numbers are down nearly 23 FTE in 11th grade, about 15 FTE in ninth grade, 14 FTE in fifth grade and 13 FTE in sixth grade.

Compared to enrollment numbers from September last year, the district is down 38 FTE in 11th grade, 31 FTE in third grade, 29 FTE in fourth grade, nearly 28 FTE in ninth grade, 14 FTE in sixth grade and about 12 FTE in eighth and 12th grades. Numbers decreased only slightly compared to last year in 10th and fifth grades and kindergarten.

The district did gain some students in first and seventh grades. It saw a significant jump in second grade, gaining nearly 19 FTE compared to enrollment at this time last year.

Borgen said the frustrating thing about the unexpected drop is the district’s track record estimating enrollment. The district has a history of quite accurate enrollment predictions.

“We have to find a way to get ahead of it as much as we can,” he said.

He said in the future the district may have to estimate down even more. It is easier to add a teacher than to find savings in the budget.

Even with the drop, Borgen said class sizes are still in the right range.

“It’s not like we’re sitting there with classes of five or six or even 10 kids,” he said. “There are still pretty full classes.”

All elementary classes have at least 20 students.

District leaders hope the enrollment will level off in the next few years after a few years of unexpectedly high drops.

“We’ve had two years where we’ve lost a lot of kids for various reasons,” Borgen said.

He said students and their families left the district for a variety of reasons — some related to the troubled economy and higher gas prices. Reasons include going to live with another parent, military and job transfers or being able to buy a more affordable home elsewhere, he said.

Between the end of the last school year and the beginning of this school year the district lost 166 students.

Over the summer, 19 elementary students transferred out of state; 42 elementary, 24 middle and 36 high school students (102 total) transferred to another district in Washington; 11 elementary, 2 middle and one high school student (14 total) opted to be home schooled; 11 elementary, one middle and five high school students (17 total) transferred with the military; and one elementary and six middle school students (seven total) went to a private school.

Borgen said one good message from parents is the quality of Anacortes schools is still strong.

“We still have a large amount of parents who commute a long way to work,” he said.

Enrollment in the Anacortes School District has been steadily declining over the past 10 years. Full-time equivalent enrollment numbers for September of each year show a 12 percent drop since 1998.

1998 — 2,996

1999 — 2,965

2000 — 2,970

2001 — 2,965

2002 — 2,975

2003 — 2,948

2004 — 2,927

2005 — 2,898

2006 — 2,811

2007 — 2,785

2008 — 2,638