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Good afternoon, My identify is Melissa deVita and I’m the Deputy Superintendent of Finance and Operations for the Bellevue College District. Thanks for watching this video and to your ongoing curiosity in our college district. That is the third in a collection of displays that I’ve given relating to the way forward for our district and the planning that we’ve been doing for it. In the present day I’d prefer to offer you extra data relating to how our college funds work and the place our cash is spent, the affect of enrollment declines, and a number of the methods we can be utilizing to handle these declines. Lastly, I’d like to point out you the enrollment forecast for the seven colleges that we’re and contemplating for consolidation.
Our complete common fund funds for our colleges this 12 months is 388 million {dollars}. Our common fund is like your checking account. It’s what we use to pay for our each day operations. 88 p.c of our common fund expenditures are focused for college students and their colleges. Instructing college students and supporting college students does make up the most important portion of those bills and scholar help consists of issues just like the paraeducators and the overall college assistants in our buildings. And it consists of different help supplied by employees members within the college buildings however not essentially in a classroom every day. The remaining 12 p.c of our funds is spent on curriculum together with curriculum supplies which are supplied to colleges in of their college buildings, educating help resembling coaches, mentors, {and professional} growth, and district administration. The entire spent on district administration is 16 million {dollars} yearly. And this isn’t just for district management but in addition consists of key features of the district like human assets, accounting, funds growth, and payroll. Our objective is to proceed to enhance the effectivity of those features however we can’t absolutely eradicate them as we transfer ahead. Prior to now two years, we’ve taken out 1,000,000 {dollars} from the district features and we are going to proceed to search for alternatives to cut back on this space. Nonetheless, the affect of the misplaced income as a consequence of enrollment declines can’t be discovered simply in district features and can, sadly, additionally affect our college students and colleges. We are able to additionally have a look at our spending in different methods. Faculties are a folks enterprise and, as anticipated, we spend nearly all of our working funds on folks — 84 p.c. This consists of each salaries and advantages. The opposite 16 p.c is spent on supplies and provides utilized in our college buildings and outdoors buy companies, that are usually for authorized charges, auditor charges, and different consulting charges the place we want some further experience but it surely’s not value growing that experience internally — resembling our demographer.
Enrollment drives college district income and I’ve been stating that for some time now. 80 p.c of our working income is pushed by our enrollment. For each 100 college students that we’ve we obtain about 1.3 million {dollars}. So after we lose 100 college students we lose 1.3 million {dollars} in income. And that’s equal to what it prices us for 9 full-time employees members. Over the previous three years the drop of practically 1,900 college students might have impacted our income by 20 million {dollars}. However for the previous two years, the state has supplied us with maintain innocent income, which means that they’ve been utilizing our pre-pandemic enrollment to calculate the income that we might obtain from each the state and our native Levy. So we’ve not but felt the affect of those enrollment drops. As well as, we’ve been receiving elementary and secondary college emergency funds, extra generally often called Esser funds, from the federal authorities. Nonetheless, shifting ahead, the state will not present the entire innocent funds and income and that can be disappearing within the 23-24 college 12 months. And our Esser funds we’ve deliberate to spend not solely subsequent college 12 months however then we’ll be gone within the 24-25 college 12 months.
So now’s the time for us to determine one of the simplest ways to cut back our working bills. Now I do know a few of you’re in all probability questioning why are we simply elementary colleges and we’re simply elementary colleges this 12 months. And that’s as a result of 70 p.c of this lack of enrollment was at our elementary colleges. We plan on our secondary colleges as we transfer into our subsequent college 12 months.
The price of operating our colleges on a per pupil foundation very considerably relying upon the scale of our colleges. On this graph, all 18 of our elementary colleges and their value per scholar is depicted as properly. For our smaller colleges that prices could be as excessive as simply over fifteen thousand {dollars} per scholar. However for our bigger colleges, it drops to seven thousand {dollars} per scholar. And this relationship is clear on this graph. We at present have the identical mounted prices at each college, it doesn’t matter what the scale — a principal, an assistant principal, a trainer chief, a librarian, a full-time counselor, the constructing utilities, the custodial employees, grounds and constructing upkeep. And so it’s straightforward to see why as enrollment drops value per pupil will increase. The state gives our funding primarily based upon a prototypical college mannequin. And what meaning is that they calculate what they’d anticipate the fee to be of operating a 400 scholar elementary college. After which they divide that by the 400 college students and provide you with a price per scholar. After which multiply that by our elementary enrollment to determine how a lot we might obtain in funding. In order our enrollment in our elementary colleges drop, we don’t obtain sufficient funding from the state to help these colleges and we should complement it with funding from different locations. Now we do have some choices as a result of we might minimize companies and staffing in these colleges. We might have a halftime librarian, a half-time counselor, halftime college administration. Or we are able to have a look at consolidating these colleges right into a extra common college dimension for elementary colleges after which preserve the identical stage of companies which are obtainable in any respect of our bigger elementary colleges. The query actually comes all the way down to: “What’s the precedence in our college district?” Is it the placement of the college constructing or the companies our college students obtain once they arrive at college? We can’t preserve the identical service ranges in all of our colleges if we preserve the identical variety of elementary colleges that we at present have and permit our enrollment to drop down as little as 200 college students per college.
So we’ve been completely different methods for some time now. We’ve been contemplating a variety of various things. We might deal with our decrease enrollment by remaining establishment with the identical variety of colleges. We might wait and see if enrollment is de facto going to proceed to say no and the way lengthy ought to we wait. But when we undertake these methods then we have to start chopping employees and companies at our colleges and all through the district. As we do this, some dad and mom might determine to tug their college students as a result of they aren’t receiving the companies that they have been prior to now. They usually might determine to homeschool, go to a neighboring college district, or go to a non-public college. And as these college students depart then our enrollment will proceed to say no and we might want to minimize extra companies. This turns into a downward spiral that’s more durable and more durable to interrupt away from. It’s actually a contraction technique. Or we are able to go in one other path aimed toward sustaining and enhancing our academic alternatives for college students. We are able to proper dimension our district, which implies having the proper variety of elementary college services wanted to help the variety of college students that we’ve. We are able to make investments then in modern programming and alternatives for our college students, reasonably than fueling funneling cash into below enrolled colleges. We are able to appeal to college students from personal colleges, homeschooling, and different districts reasonably than dropping college students to these different academic choices. And this path that is the path that we wish to head in — to proper dimension our district, have open enrollment, present modern programming, and focused spending on the issues which have the best affect on our college students and their success.
I do know that that is onerous work. I notice many individuals can be impacted. However our objective from that is to supply the very best companies helps and applications to all elementary college students and never um have them impacted simply because they’re in a smaller college than others. Enrollment drops will lead to extra multi-grade lecture rooms. If a few of our colleges go all the way down to the forecasted variety of 200 college students, college students can be in multi-grade lecture rooms for almost all of their elementary years.
It is going to lead to our incapability to totally employees our helps in all of our colleges. And our specialty employees can be going to a number of buildings and spending a variety of time of their vehicles as a substitute of including worth to our college students. And our skill to spend money on Progressive programming shifting ahead can be very restricted as a result of we’re once more investing in decrease enrollment colleges. We now have a choice to make relating to what sort of district we would like over the subsequent 10 years. And that must be our focus at present and as we transfer ahead into the subsequent couple of years.
I’d like to point out you the place enrollment is forecasted to go for a number of the colleges that we’re for consolidation. So, that is Eastgate Elementary. The historic years are on the left, going from 2015 to the present college 12 months of 2023. After which shifting ahead on the proper are the college years with the forecasted numbers. Mainly, proper now what we’re is the potential of Eastgate Elementary dropping all the way down to 200 college students over the subsequent 5 years. Even when we predict we’re going to get 10 p.c extra college students than depicted on this graph, that may nonetheless solely put Eastgate Elementary at 223 college students, reasonably than the 203, which isn’t sufficient to take care of a full set of companies for all of our college students at that college. Woodridge Elementary is a number of the similar impacts dropping to 240 college students over the subsequent 5 years.
Wilburton once more dropping to simply about 285 college students over the subsequent 5 years. And this story repeats for Enatai and for Sherwood Forestand for Ardmore Elementary.
Now Phantom Lake is a bit completely different. Phantom Lake it doesn’t present forecast of declining enrollment. However Phantom lake has traditionally been the bottom District the bottom enrollment college in our district, hovering proper round or above 330 to 350 college students. They usually have been at this stage at this lowest up till this 12 months, the 2022 college 12 months. Going ahead, they’re not forecasted to develop. They’re forecasted to stay comparatively flat as properly. And in order that’s why we’re them as an alternative choice for both consolidation or bringing in applications or different college students to their college. Thanks for taking the time to hearken to this video. We’ll proceed to share data shifting ahead and would admire your inputs via Let’s Discuss on our web site. Have a fantastic day.
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