State gives LO School District a glimmer of hope

By Rebecca Mayer

The Lake Oswego Review, May 21, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

On Monday, Lake Oswego School District officials were holding their breath after hearing news of an increase in state funding for next year.

“One of my fears is that we’ll get really excited about it and then be brought back to earth,” said Superintendent Bill Korach at the Monday board meeting. “There are miles to go here.”

The state released new estimates of next year’s budget on Friday, which gave $6 billion to education in Oregon. Previous lower estimates were at $5.6 billion or $5.4 billion. At the worst estimate, the district is estimating 50 teacher cuts.

The new state number translates into a $9.4 million funding gap for the district and brings the number of teacher cuts down to 20 teachers. The district also anticipates cuts to classified employees, which are maintenance and support staff, but no set number of positions has been determined.

“It’s good news that they’re at least funding education better than they’ve been talking about it,” said Korach.

Still, the district is nervous to rely fully on the $6 billion number from the state since it is dependent upon a few factors: 1) if the economy continues to suffer, the state may not be able to hold enough in reserves for the 2010-11 school year, and could have to rebalance the budget for the second year of the biennium and 2) the proposed budget is dependent upon an $800 million revenue package that increases taxes on the wealthy and corporations. The package has yet to pass through the Legislature and could be challenged on the January 2010 ballot.

The district is working on a budget based on funding at all three levels: $6 billion, $5.6 billion and $5.4 billion. At the first two levels, it does not anticipate changes to the school schedule for the 2009-2010 school year.

Finance Director Stuart Ketzler also reported the ending fund balance of this year’s budget to be lower than hoped. Currently he estimates it has fallen to just under $3 million after March expenditures. The district hopes to carry over $3 million from this year, spending half of it in 2009-2010 and half in 2010-2011.

The district did report news on some steady funding that has been guaranteed by the LOSD Foundation, which is at a little more than $1.4 million for the annual campaign. The district has previously only plugged in a $1.3 million donation for the budget planning.

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