Tonight the Washoe County School District is having their regular meeting where they discussed their current and future budget and what it might look like.
Their tentative budget needs to be approved by April 15th, 2025, and a final budget is due to the state on June 8th, 2025, right after the last legislative session, which falls on June 2nd, 2025.
"Having the legislative session among us puts pressure on the district regarding their budget," says Beth Smith, president of the board of trustees for the Washoe County School District.
"It's the only reason why we have this pressure; that's because every two years we find the amount of money that we're going to be allocated, and based on the current proposals, we are facing a deficit."
At this time, the school board is facing a $9.6 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2026.
In February, WCSD staff projected a $9.7 million general fund budget deficit for the fiscal year of 2026 based on known expenditure changes and revenues from the governor's amended recommended budget.
Smith explains why they're in a deficit. "We are in a deficit because the price of things continues to increase, so when our funding does not match that of inflation or we are expected to and have contractual obligations for some of our labor association, simply the cost of gas and consumables, when funding stays flat or goes down, that's just math."
During the presentation tonight, they discussed ending post-employment benefits like OPED, but they do want to point out those getting OPED benefits won't be affected because they already filled the fund.
Smith explains, "What we've done is, thanks to great fiscal responsibility, we have filled that account to its maximum needed level, and that's why we're able to pause on that for now."
They also touched on ending trust fund contributions, ending Medicaid payments to the state, rebasing department budgets, and defunding stormwater utility fees.
Smith adds, "Something our board approved today was that special fund of money to help teachers pay for additional certification in hard-to-fill areas, so even though we are making efficiencies and doing some reduction to teams, there will be no loss of positions; just for efforts, we're still also investing in the areas that are critical for growth."
They also spoke about making a range of changes to positions in the academic area. They also pointed out no one will lose their job; they will only be reallocated to different positions if needed.
Smith goes on to say, "We're going to look back into all of our departments and do that re-imagining of all of those departments through the way we did with academics, and that's a healthy process. We're going to do that with all of our departments and find those efficiencies everywhere because we owe it to every family and every taxpayer to work every single penny in the very best way, and that's something we should be doing, and the deficit really encourages us to do that deeper."
Smith adds, "I think that people will see with our organizational reimagining with a lot of these departments what we're doing is actually looking for duplication efforts and finding efficiencies, and there's actually no reduction in the workforce. What we're doing is actually bringing departments together and reallocating people so no one is losing their roles here in Washoe County."
Everything in the presentation is suggesting them saving millions in the general fund.
They explained that money in the general fund is more permanent money for them to use in the future.
With all of these changes, they are saying they could possibly get the deficit down to around $6.5 million instead.
Smith mentions, "What we did today was actively make organizational efficiencies and then also add positions that we know are absolutely critical to delivering services to our kids."
The board made the decision to move forward with this plan 0-7 unanimously.
