By Bill Reynolds
La Conner Community News
Money matters mattered most when the La Conner School Board met on Monday.
Board members at their July 27 session approved a $13.6 million budget for 2026-27, adopted a resolution placing a four-year educational modernization and technology levy before voters in November, and discussed a path toward building a reserve fund balance equal to 10% of the district budget.
The new school budget is only slightly bigger than the $13.3 million fiscal plan employed in 2025-26 and reflects a projected dip in full-time K-12 student enrollment from 457 a year ago to 442 this fall.
Student enrollment, according to La Conner Schools Superintendent David Cram, is the main driver of state funding support for public school districts.
La Conner Schools has seen its enrollment decline in the post-COVID era. The local district operated a $15.3 million budget in 2021-22 and enrolled 524 students the following school year.
“The good news is that our enrollment is not going down as much as it has,” board President Susie Deyo said. Enrollment fell to 492 in 2023-24 and 463 in 2024-25.
Cram said the 2026-27 enrollment projection is based on the recently graduated high school senior class having had more students than the incoming kindergarten group.
“The outgoing senior class was in the 40s, and we’re expecting about 30 entering kindergarten,” he said.
Despite decreased enrollment and a reduction in Skagit County funding, Cram anticipates district revenues to exceed $13,645,00 during the upcoming school year. Expenditures are expected to run just under $13,602,000, with about 83% of that amount earmarked for staff compensation.
“We are in the people business,” Cram noted, adding that school systems elsewhere often budget a higher percentage of their revenues to staff wages, salaries, and benefits.
La Conner Schools will have 2.5 fewer full-time employees this year due to attrition from 2025-26 retirements, Cram said.
“We know that you look for every penny in savings and all the grant opportunities out there for us,” Deyo told Cram.
While projected 2026-27 revenues outweigh anticipated expenditures by about $45,000, Cram and the board have begun strategizing how to grow the district’s reserve fund. Cram estimates the reserve fund balance will be around $500,000 when fall classes convene.
The board’s reserve fund goal is 10% of the district budget, about $1.36 million. To that end, Cram presented to the board on Monday a three-point plan putting the district on a path to a 10% fund balance.
That pathway focuses on right-size staffing, aligning athletic programs with enrollment levels, and advocacy for additional state support for materials, supplies, and operating costs.
Board member John Agen expressed disappointment with the level of state funding support of public schools. The state constitution requires the Legislature to consider funding public education its paramount duty.
“The problem, as I see it is that we haven’t been able to move the Legislature,” Agen said. “We don’t get funded (enough) by the state. If education is a priority for our state, they’re not doing their job.”
Faced with aging student and staff computers and tech devices plus pressing campus building repair needs, the board will propose a 30 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation levy on the Nov. 3 ballot. If approved, the measure would raise about $150 annually — $12.50 per month — on a $500,000 property, with those funds committed to technology and facilities upgrades.
Levy collections would run from 2027-2030. The district would realize $350,000 in 2027, $365,000 in 2028, $380,000 in 2029, and $395,000 in 2030.
“I’ve been super conservative about increasing any taxes on our community,” Deyo said. “And we know that Dave is super conservative. But I think we’ll have to do a levy for technology and facilities improvements.
“We don’t take this lightly,” Deyo stressed. “Hopefully at the end of these four years we’ll be right-sized and hopefully the Legislature will step up.”
The 35-minute meeting closed with the board accepting a $928 donation for the Braves Hub from the Skagit Valley Clean Energy Alliance.
Bill Reynolds is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
