Cheney school board gets look at state funding

Cheney School District board of directors got a preliminary picture at their May 23 meeting of what life will look like under the state’s new funding package passed last year — which increases the state’s portion and decreases the level of local support.

In a presentation, the director of finance, Jamie Weingart, told the board that state only funding will increase next year — 2018-2109 — by almost $7.1 million, up from 2017-18 amount of $41.51 million to $48.6 million. That will go up again by $841,000 in 2019-2020 to $49.44 million.

A welcome increase, but Weingart warned it comes with a caveat.

“While we’re getting that $7 million, there’s some offset on the other side,” she told the board.

The other side is the local level, which begins with levy amounts approved by voters in three-year increments. Cheney’s final year of the previous levy is ending in June, and amounts to $9.517 million.

The Legislature’s new school funding package approved in 2017 — brought on by a state Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that Washington wasn’t fulfilling it’s constitutional duties to fund basic education — kicks in at the start of the 2018-2019 school year. The legislation transfers more funding responsibility to the state by reducing the amount school districts can collect through their levies.

In 2018-2019, that drops in the Cheney district by $2.36 million to $7.15 million, and again in 2019-2020 by $1.73 million to $5.42 million. That local funding piece also includes a reduction in levy equalization amounts — money which provides additional funds to districts whose property taxes are lower than the state average.

Cheney is slated to receive just over $1.94 million in levy equalization funds this year. That falls to over $1.567 million in 2018-2019 and to almost $1.34 million in 2019-2020.

The result is still a net increase in state funding, going from $52.97 million this year to $57.325 million next year and to almost $56.2 million in 2019-2020. Weingart said it averages to a two-year increase of $3.789 million, a 6.5 percent increase.

But, that also comes with a caveat.

“They’re giving us (more) money, but it goes to certain areas,” Weingart said. “We do get some say in areas like K-4 literacy. It’s similar to some of our federal programs in that way.”

“The biggest thing is the taxpayer will see a reduction in the levy, and an increase in school funding,” Superintendent Rob Roettger said.

Associate Superintendent Sean Dotson said the state has also changed the model for funding teachers, and that district officials will spend the summer months talking to representatives from the Cheney Education Association and other groups about how that will work.

The board also received an update from construction management firm OAC representative Rusty Pritchard on the district’s four capital facilities projects — funded mostly by a $52 million voter-approved bond in 2017. Pritchard said the walls were framed and roof trusses in place at Cheney’s Betz Elementary School, with the exterior work expected to be completed by May 31 and the project coming in under budget.

Value engineering work at Windsor Elementary School and Sunset Elementary School in Airway Heights had reduced costs by $186,000 and $312,000 respectively, bringing those projects within budget as well. At the high school — which is being managed under a general contractor/construction management model — 90 percent of the construction documents had been issued by May 9, and officials were at the point where a guaranteed maximum price could be negotiated with general contractor Lydig and OAC.

“The guaranteed maximum price is not a blank check,” Pritchard said, adding it should be presented to the board at its June 27 meeting.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].