Cuts in Shelton schools

During the next three months, the Shelton School District will choose classified and nonrepresented employees to lay off or move elsewhere to erase a $750,000 budget deficit. Then the district faces making $3 million in cuts in the 2025-26 school year budget.

The employees affected by the first reduction in force will be notified by May 15, as required by state law.

"We are required by state law to have a balanced budget ... There's no way to get around it," Superintendent Wyeth Jessee said in an interview Monday with the Journal at the district's headquarters.

"It will take more than one year to get out of it," Clinton Sherman, the district's executive director of finance, said during the same interview.

Growing expenses are far outpacing revenue, Jessee said.

"The state funding for education is flawed ... The funding hasn't been increased enough to meet the basic education costs," he said.

Sherman agreed. "The biggest challenge is the state's formula."

The superintendent points out that 86.5% of the district's budget is people-related expenses.

Due to labor contracts, certified staff cannot be RIFed in the middle of a school year, Jessee said. But classified staff - who include paraeducators, office administrators and some district administrators - can.

When it comes to laying off certified employees, it will be based on seniority, Jessee said.

One challenge is the state gives the district about $77,000 per teacher, but the average salary for a teacher in the Shelton School District is $90,000, Sherman said. The goal on the cuts is to "minimize the impact to the kids," he said.

The superintendent said that when he talks to parents, they say they care about the services their kids receive. Jessee said he'd like to have more counselors, nurses and special education employees in the district.

"I would love to have a certified librarian at every school," Jessee said.

Jessee points out other Mason County school districts are making cuts, including Pioneer, Grapeview and Southside.

"This is statewide issue," Jessee said.

"We're not alone," said Sherman.

Last month, the district established a folder on its website called "budget realignment."

One of the articles on the site quotes figures from the League of Education Voters that found Washington school districts have increased spending on staff by 19.7% between the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years.

During that same time period, food costs increased 36%, insurance costs $48 million, repair costs 54% and natural gas costs 76%. Jessee said the district spends more than $30,000 a month on fuel and $25,000 on garbage collection.