28 school positions to be cut under draft Kennewick budget. Why so many?

Kennewick School District is expecting to cut 28 teaching and staff positions, according to preliminary budget projections for the 2024-25 school year.

And it’s likely the district will eliminate more positions next year, too.

Superintendent Traci Pierce said this week they plan to eliminate the positions through attrition, retirements and resignations. The number of cuts is larger than the district normally sees in a usual year.

They are not planning a reduction in force, commonly known as RIF, and no staff members are expected to lose their jobs for the next school year, Pierce emphasized.

“For the past three years, (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding has been used to maintain staff positions when the levy failed and to keep class sizes low,” Pierce told the Tri-City Herald.

“Maintaining low class sizes was part of our learning recovery efforts tied to ESSER funding. Now that ESSER funding is expiring, we need to reduce these positions,” she said.

They include 17 certificated elementary school positions, eight teaching jobs at middle and high schools, and three positions in alternative programs. It’s unclear which schools or facilities will see the cuts.

Eliminating the positions will save the district more than $2.5 million in a year when expenditures are expected to eclipse revenues by about $6.7 million.

The district has anticipated operating on a $5 million to $10 million annual budget shortfall ever since a 2022 double levy failure.

Early projections show nearly $316 million in revenues and $323 million in expenditures in next school year’s general fund budget. Salaries and benefits alone make up 86% of the district’s budget.

Kennewick School District staff are busy drafting the spending budget that funds 3,500 teachers and employees in more than 30 schools, and which supports the education of 19,000 students.

The district is Kennewick’s largest employer.

Pandemic stimulus money

ESSER is the pandemic-era financial stimulus passed by Congress in 2020 and 2021. The fund has provided billions for state programs and local school districts ever since classes were disrupted by the historic COVID pandemic.

The third and final installment of these one-time funds must be obligated or spent by Sept. 30.

The Kennewick School District has used about one-third of its ESSER — roughly $20 million of its total $59 million allocation — covering programs, teacher salaries and other expenses that would have been covered by levy dollars.

Pierce said Kennewick was very mindful to not use ESSER to fund ongoing expenses and has been intentional to keep a healthy balance in the general fund.

The district was unable to collect millions in local levy funding last year after voters twice rejected measures in 2022. Levy-related funds make up about 11% of the district’s total revenues.

After twice lowering the levy amount, voters in February 2023 finally approved a three-year levy measure to raise $72 million starting this year.

The district also was due to collect up to $14 million in state matching money with the levy’s passage, but that amount will likely be much lower since property valuations skyrocketed last year, causing the district’s levy rates to dip below a threshold needed for the maximum levy match.

Like many school districts, Kennewick is still grappling with a reduction in enrollment it saw during the pandemic.

Enrollment is important because it correlates with how much funding local school districts get from Washington state.

But Kennewick has not seen a substantial reduction in enrollment that would trigger layoffs like districts in Yakima and Vancouver.

The district had 18,835 full-time equivalent students during the 2023-24 school year. That’s about 100 students fewer than in the 2019-20 school year.