As we have been suggesting, the state budget news is not good. This Seattle Times article paints a grim picture with a potential $500 million cut in this fiscal year and a $3.3 billion shortfall for the next biennium. These numbers are worse than anticipated and public schools will not be able to escape the cuts that will be necessary to balance this year's state budget.
We are still getting conflicting information on the federal government's influx of money to save education jobs. The governor filed the state's proposal this past week and the federal education department has assured states that they will expedite the process. Some good news for us is that the state will use the apportionment formula to determine how much each district will receive and not Title 1 which would have resulted in less revenue for us. What we don't yet know is if this money will be in addition to projected state revenue or if it is part of what the state was gambling on to provide for the projected state revenue in our budget. Our current guess is that it will be replacement money, not an add on to offset the cuts that we will soon hear about.
Thursday is a big day as the state will announce a new forecast for tax collections that is expected to be worse than anticipated. Complicating this picture are the initiatives on the November ballot that could result in an even larger shortfall that must be met.
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