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2025-2026 Budget Development

budget development 2025-2026 school year graphic

 

Budget Development for 2025-2026 School Year

While the levy passed by our community and previous reductions have helped, we still face reduced revenue in other areas that require us to seek further cost-reduction opportunities for the 2025-2026 school year. As we move forward, our commitment is to keep students at the center of every decision and to treat every staff member with respect, care, and transparency throughout this process. District leadership is working closely with our school leaders and labor partners on the Small Teams Budget Advisory Committee to ensure decisions are made thoughtfully and transparently. 

This webpage will serve as a resource for information throughout the budget development process. 

Funding Challenges Are Not Just an Oak Harbor Issue, It’s a Statewide Issue

 

Why Do We Need to do Budget Reductions?

Federal funding uncertainty in Title, special education, and Impact Aid make predicting federal funding unreliable. At the state level, the state continues to underfund basic education, the recent legislative session did not provide the critical funding relief we were hoping for in key areas like Special Education, Transportation, and Maintenance, Supplies & Operating Costs (MSOCs). Finally, declining student enrollment—something many districts across the state are experiencing—further impacts our funding. These factors make it necessary to continue to adjust our staffing levels to align more closely with our current enrollment and available funding. With salaries and benefits accounting for over 85% of our total budget, we will need to continue to balance our budget by reducing staffing. 

The charts below demonstrate the key funding gaps Oak Harbor Public Schools is currently experiencing. 

 

Declining Enrollment

 

Declining student enrollment—something many districts across the state are experiencing—further impacts our funding.  School districts receive state funding through average daily attendance. When enrollment declines, funding for school districts do as well. Over the past five years, Oak harbor Public Schools has seen nearly 400 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) student decrease. Despite recent efforts to reduce staffing, our current staffing levels are no longer aligned to our current enrollment.

A line graph showing OHPS September FTE Trendline from 2018-19 to 2024-25.

Increasing Special Education Costs

Through our continued partnership with Naval Air Station Whidbey Island (NASWI), we serve more students with disabilities than surrounding districts. NASWI is an exceptional family member base because of the proximity to Seattle Children’s Hospital, which means there are more students with special needs in our school district. Currently, Oak Harbor Public Schools has 23% of the student population on an IEP (PreK-21), while the state will only fund up to 16% of students. This has led to a massive funding gap for Oak Harbor Public Schools over the past three years.

A bar chart comparing two sets of data, showing dollar amounts in millions.

 

Increasing Materials, Supplies and Operating Costs (MSOCs)

State and federal funding to support schools isn’t keeping pace with the rising costs of MSOCs, which include items like Chromebooks, technology and curriculum.  Oak Harbor Public Schools hasn’t made significant investments in MSOCs in several years to remain fisically conservative, but this has led to a backlog on needs for critical supplies, technology maintenance and updated curriculum.  Curriculum used to be provided to students through a textbook, which was a one-time investment. Now, with modern learning and teaching strategies, school districts are paying annual fees to update curriculum and software subscriptions. The current state funding model has not adjusted to these increased costs in goods and services.

A bar chart showing a $5 million gap between $12 million and $7 million.