The Washoe County School District is already discussing their annual budget for fiscal year 2019.
The budgeting process is happening 5 months earlier than usual at the request of the board of trustees.
The district has faced a budget deficit since 2008, and they hope a more thorough process can help them finally tackle this issue.
For the 2017 to 2018 school year, the district faced a $40 million deficit. That is estimated to drop for the 2018-to-2019 school year to a $22 million to $28 million deficit. But Chief Financial Officer Tom Ciesynski says this number is tentative and could still change, as there are many unknown factors that still remain.
“Still looking at what fuel costs are going to look like for the year, what utility costs are going to look like for the year and then you have to look at the downside if something catastrophic happens, then we have to be prepared for that as well,” said Ciesynski.
Ciesynski says the school district must also determine how they'll continue to allocate resources if they want to cut the deficit, because in order to cut the deficit by 20 million dollars from 2018 to 2019, many difficult decisions have had to be made.
“We set a goal of not letting anybody off, we met that objective but we still didn't fill 40 positions last year, mostly central-service related positions, we did have to increase class sizes and we did obtain savings,” said Ciesynski.
And savings is something the school district hopes to continue to rely on. Whether it is the utility costs coming in under budget or fuel costs dropping for buses, every little thing will be considered as a way to save.
"Ultimately the board has set a goal of having structurally balanced budget within the next three years knowing we may not be able to get it all in one year and we'll definitely look at savings as a way to help balance the budget for 2019,” said Ciesynski.
