To: Asha Riley, Superintendent
From: Stacy Brown, Director of Business Services
Date: April 17, 2026
Subject: March Financial/April Enrollment
2026-2027 Budget Process Update:
I am moving right along on the 26-27 budget. I have entered most of the staff information based on planning meetings with the buildings and departments. As we have completed negotiating with the teachers and have continuing contracts with our other groups, I can include actual wages. In other years, depending on who we are bargaining with and what stage we are in, I sometimes had to estimate for budget purposes. Knowing all of the actual wages for all groups puts me in a good position to complete the budget early this year.
I originally used February’s enrollment numbers as a starting point, but since enrollment has decreased by almost 20 students since then, I recalculated the numbers for the budget, being very conservative. OSPI has opened up the budgeting tools for the 26-27 school year, so I am able to complete the entire process and will be working on that in the next couple of weeks. My plan is to have very firm budget numbers by the first week of May.
Financial Update:
The months of September 2025 through March 2026 have been closed. I was able to take a look at our cash flow for the remainder of the year, and we should not fall below zero in any month for this year. I included a projection of the monthly fund balance with the reports. I also included the Budget Status Reports for all funds for the month of March. I will provide full projections, including revenues, expenditures, and ending fund balance, next month.
Enrollment:
I have attached the Headcount and Average FTE enrollment reports for April. Unfortunately, we are down 15 students in both headcount and FTE compared to March. As you can see by the headcount review, we are down in almost every grade level, which is odd for this time of year. The average is now 85.87 (only about 1.3 below March). The later we get in the year, the smaller effect the decreases and increases have on the overall average.
This time of year, our Special Education numbers usually catch up, but unfortunately, we are 8.57 below budget in the area of PK and 13.14 below budget at KG through age 21 (we were up a total of 3 students, but as with the basic enrollment, increases and decreases at this point have very little effect on the annual average). We continue to monitor enrollment and staffing closely.
Attached Documents:
Please let me know if you have any questions!