School budget looks fine for coming school year

Grand Coulee Dam School District’s budget is anticipated to be in good standing this coming school year, but maybe not the year after.

“I think we’re going to be OK,” Superintendent Paul Turner told the school board April 26 in a meeting held via Zoom. “My bigger worry is 2021-22.”

The optimism was a shift in tone from the previous board meeting in which larger cuts were anticipated in school revenues due to the strain on the state’s funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

On Monday, Turner said that cuts aren’t anticipated to be made by state legislators before the elections this year, which would mean cuts made after the elections, perhaps in December, could affect the school’s budget in the spring of 2021 at the earliest. 

“We really hope they don’t come back before the elections,” Turner said about the Legislature 

over the phone on Tuesday. 

Some of the stimulus money the state of Washington is receiving from the federal government will go towards education as well, and Turner anticipates that “Title I” dollars will remain about the same, and that the stimulus money won’t come with any strings, allowing the district to use the money where needed.

Title I funds for 2019-20 were $199,000. 

Those dollars come from the federal government and are used largely to pay paraprofessionals, Turner said. “It’s probably going to be our saving grace,” he said, adding that over half of the paraprofessionals are paid out of Title I or from a similar fund of state money called the Learning Assistance Program.

Turner told the board that making cuts by attrition as staff retires will also help balance the budget.

Further cuts to staff or programs are not currently anticipated, he said.