This summer, 4.5 librarians in the Mount Vernon School District were cut from the budget. Across the state, food, fuel and staff raises take a bigger bite out of school district budgets every year.

Some argue those tasks are the responsibility of the state. To pay for price increases, many districts are putting off building maintenance or laying off staff.

The costs, and the cuts, will continue until the Legislature changes the state’s education finance system, officials from districts across Skagit County said.

Tuesday in La Conner, officials from 35 school districts — from Edmonds north to the Canadian border — will meet with more than a dozen legislators and urge them to support the full funding of basic education. School officials also want legislators to come away with an understanding of how their decisions in Olympia affect local school districts.

The current funding crisis

State funding has not kept up with school districts’ basic needs, said Priddy.

“Basic education funding formulas haven’t been updated in 30 years,” Priddy said. “They aren’t driving enough money to pay for running a school district.”

In recent years the Burlington-Edison School District has struggled to maintain service levels, said Finance Director Joe Stewart.

“What most districts have tried to do is avoid hitting the classroom,” Stewart said. “We’re at a point now where the fluff is gone and really with so much of your district budget represented by salaries, if you’re going to make an impactful cut, salary is what’s left.”

Communicating with legislators

Earlier this year, the Anacortes School Board decided to host a meeting between area legislators and school officials to explain the impact of legislator’s decisions in Olympia on the school system.

“I was hoping we could get 50 percent (participation) and we got way more than that,” said Kris Lytton, a school board member. “I think they realize the crisis we are in.”

School boards in 35 districts supported the meeting and are presenting a one-page document to legislators on Tuesday.

“We wanted to give them a clear focus,” Lytton said.

Communication with legislators is key, said Jennifer Priddy, assistant superintendent for K-12 finance with the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“We have to be clear about what the problem is,” Priddy said. “If you don’t quantify the problem, you can’t solve it.”

Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance

Last year the Legislature decided to create a task force to “review the definition of basic education and all current basic education funding formulas.” The task force has come up with four different funding proposals to consider, said state Rep. Dave Quall, a Mount Vernon Democrat.

Quall, chairman of the House Education Committee, said it will be difficult to pass every one of the task force’s recommendations in the current economy. Sales tax revenues are down and the state’s Senate Ways and Committee is predicting a $3.2 billion shortfall.

The cost to implement a new funding plan, if passed by the Legislature in subsequent years will be billions, Quall said.

“If we are going to commit over the next six years to phasing this in, the first step will have to be in this tough budget year,” Quall said. “I think in order to have credibility there has to be a first step.”

District officials will present their favored proposal at Tuesday’s meeting, the Full Funding Coalition Proposal.

District funding challenges

Districts throughout Skagit County and the state pay more each year for services the state requires them to do, officials say.

“The local percentage of revenue keeps going up and the state’s percentage keeps going down,” said Kathy Hurn, business manager of the Concrete School District.

Following are funding challenges that Skagit County educators view as critical:

Transportation

Currently districts are paid to transport students to school based on a “by the crow flies” model. Districts that cover mountainous areas with switch back roads tend to receive far less money than other districts on flat land. Districts are also funded all year based on a ridership count conducted for one week in October, which area districts say is not fair.

Special Education

The state currently assumes that 12.7 percent of a district’s population — age 3 through 21 — will require special education services, Hurn said.

“If your district exceeds that, and Concrete is at 14.6, that’s almost 2 percent more than what we’re funded for,” she said.

And if the students are determined to be “high needs,” the district has to pay for it out of their fund balance and later apply for safety net funding from the state to make up some of the cost.

No Child Left Behind accountability

The state does not pay for additional staff to track student progress on standardized tests, Hurn said. So current staff mark the progress of each individual student.

“There are a myriad of new reporting requirements associated with that,” Hurn said.

Teacher training for changes at the state and federal level also bites into budgets, said Superintendent Laurel Browning of the Burlington-Edison School District.

“It takes time to pull teachers together and train them,” she said. “These kinds of things are unfunded, but we’re required to do.”

Underfunded raises for staff

When the Legislature authorizes raises for teachers and other staff, they reimburse school districts based on a formula for how many staff members per child a district should have.

But when a district hires more people through a grant, or by using state funds to lower class sizes, those teachers are not included in the state staff calculations.

Districts across the state faced cutbacks because they had to provide raises for staff not covered by the state. Mount Vernon School District had to cut roughly $1.4 million from its 2008-2009 budget as a result of cost of living adjustments approved by the state.

Effects on districts

Even smaller school districts with a history of voter support are not immune. La Conner, where school district levies have passed with overwhelming support for the past several decades, could feel the pinch soon.

“One of the main reasons for having this meeting is districts are reaching the breaking point,” said La Conner Superintendent Tim Bruce.

La Conner isn’t there yet, he said. But he notices he spends his time differently now than several years ago.

“I write a lot of grants. I’m always searching for other dollars through grants and foundations to try and back fill,” he said. “I spend a lot more time doing that than I used to. I used to spend time with student programs. Now I spend time on finances and making sure our head’s above water.”

School levies used to pay for extra programs, said Superintendent Mark Venn of the Sedro-Woolley School District.

“We would love to see levies being used for what they were originally designed,” Venn said. “It would be refreshing to go back to those days. We’ve been forced to use levy dollars for basic education.”

n Kate Martin can be reached at 360-416-2145 or at kmartin@skagitvalley herald.com.