School budget picture brightens

Sisters School District's budget hole may turn out to be smaller than originally feared.

Updated estimates issued by the Oregon Department of Education last Friday, February 27, indicate that the reduction in state school funds caused by last month's defeat of State Measure 30 will be greater than originally expected for next school year, 2004-05.

But for Sisters, that loss will be substantially offset by an increase in state revenue for the current year, 2003-04.

When Measure 30 was defeated, the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators (COSA) estimated that state funding for local schools would drop to $4,851 per student in 2004-05, $479 below what originally had been budgeted. Using that number, Sisters school officials said they expected a drop of more than $600,000 in the district's state funding for 2004-05.

Superintendent Lynn Baker also warned that the worst-case impact could be closer to $800,000 because of inflationary factors and the possible outcome of negotiations over a new teachers' contract. He said the district would try to absorb the loss, whatever it turned out to be, through spending cuts both this year and next.

The Department of Education estimates issued Friday show 2004-05 state school funding at a level lower than COSA guessed, $4,790 per student rather than $4,851. The good news for Sisters, however, is that the district's estimated state grant for 2003-04 has jumped from the $6.95 million calculated last September to $7.47 million, an increase of more than $520,000.

This change was caused almost entirely by an increase in the district's estimated "weighted average daily membership (ADM)" -- in layman's terms, enrollment adjusted for a variety of factors that affect the cost of educating different categories of students. Whereas in September the state was figuring Sisters' 2003-04 ADM at 1,360.2, last week's estimate boosted the number by almost exactly 100, to 1,459.7.

Given a 2003-04 funding level of $5,118 per student, the result for Sisters will be an additional $520,000.

By press time, Superintendent Baker had not had a chance to determine why the enrollment component of the funding formula for Sisters took such a fortuitous leap. But it's likely that the previous year's enrollment turned out to be higher than originally projected. The state makes funding adjustments for over- or underestimates of enrollment in the following year.

In any case, based on the new 2003-04 ADM figure and a per-student payment of $4,790, the state last week estimated that Sisters would receive $6.99 million for 2004-05. That would be $789,000 less than the district would have received if Measure 30 had been approved. But on a net basis, the district would be only $269,000 short of what it originally expected to receive for the two years combined.

Baker said Tuesday that he is treating all of the new numbers as tentative until he has a chance to confirm them with the state.