Leaders of the Salem-Keizer School District are beginning formal work on the district’s budget Tuesday evening, ushering in the somber reality of deep cuts that Superintendent Andrea Castañeda has been forecasting for months.
Hundreds of educators will lose work at the end of June as the district cuts about 300 full-time jobs and another 100 vacant positions. The result will be larger classes in middle and high schools, fewer nurses tending to students with medical needs and fewer mentors to help inexperienced teachers learn the ropes.
“We acknowledge and grieve the pain of this budget, but we cannot allow ambivalence or hesitancy to interfere with our fiduciary and ethical responsibilities for Salem-Keizer Public Schools,” Castañeda wrote in her budget message, delivered Tuesday, May 7. “Salem-Keizer’s 2024-25 budget is a story of proactive and protective action. And our story, like many others, is a warning for the rest of the state.”
The 176-page budget contains little new information about the scope of proposed cuts or their impact on the district. Castañeda has shared elements of her plan in recent weeks.
Here’s an overview of what citizens and school board members will be addressing on their way to recommending a final budget next month:
Total spending
$1.1 billion, down from $1.3 billion in this year
The district’s general fund is $646 million, which includes $60 million in contingency funds to deal with unexpected expenses.
That’s up from a $625 million general fund this year, which included a $36 million contingency. That was a level former Superintendent Christy Perry called “dangerously low” in presenting her final budget last year.
Money saved by deeply cutting into the district workforce is almost entirely consumed by rising wages and benefit costs. In total, the general fund includes $520.4 million to pay employees and cover the cost of benefits.
That’s slightly less than this year’s payroll budget of $522.2 million but with a workforce cut by 300 jobs in the general fund. The remaining jobs being cut are in other funds paid for by grants.
Student enrollment
The number of students attending Salem-Keizer schools is projected to drop by 500, with a total expected enrollment of 38,061. Enrollment has been steadily declining since a peak before the Covid pandemic of 41,965 in 2017.
Total full-time employees
Current year: 4,765 in general fund
Next year: 4,465 in general fund
The draft budget doesn’t contain a total count of district employees paid for by grants, the other main source of pay for employees. Castañeda said Tuesday that number is still being finalized.
Major proposed cuts
- 15 administrators, most working in district positions, and a few in schools – 13% of all district-level administrators, and 5% of administrators working in schools.
- 139 full-time classified jobs – 5% of the district’s classified workforce. Jobs cut include classroom assistants and hours for school health workers.
- 224 full-time teacher jobs and other licensed positions – about 8% of the district’s licensed workforce. That’s a decrease from an original proposal to cut 239 teachers because Castañeda said the original plan resulted in middle school class sizes increasing too much. Jobs cut include 70% of instructional mentors, who coach teachers at schools, and teachers who work in district-level jobs like curriculum.
What’s not being cut
No reductions are planned for music, art, sports, dual language and career education programs, or to security and mental and behavioral health services.
High school advanced classes and programs won’t be cut either, and special education will see only a few positions eliminated, most of them vacant.
Class sizes should remain roughly the same in elementary schools, though schools will likely see more blended classrooms where a teacher has students in two grades.
Why the district is facing deep cuts
In her budget message, Castañeda laid the blame for cuts on Oregon’s school funding formula and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic, which continue to challenge schools even as extra federal money to schools runs out.
She wrote that the budget reflects “a predicted moment in Oregon and across the nation: the final, grim intersection of flawed and failing school funding policy and school systems attempting to meet the rapidly escalating needs of their students.”
Factors influencing this year’s budget include:
- State legislative analysts vastly underestimated the impact of wage increases on school budgets, resulting in a state school fund for 2023-25 that was intended to pay for current employees, but fell far below actual costs to keep workers.
- The expiration of federal Covid relief funding, which paid for hundreds of new employees in recent years.
- Rising labor costs following new contracts for district employee unions settled earlier this year. The teacher contract will cost $42.5 over two years, and the classified contract $73 million over three years. District administrators also received significant wage increases in 2022 intended to keep pay competitive with other large districts.
- Declining enrollment means less money from the state, even as educators say student needs — and the number of educators needed to serve them — are rising.
What comes next
Budget committee meetings: Tuesday, May 7, 14 and 20 at 6 p.m.in the school district boardroom, 2575 Commercial St. S.E.
Public access: Attendance for meetings is capped at 75 people on a first-come, first-seated basis. View all budget committee meeting agendas here.
Recommendation: The budget committee in May will make a final recommendation to the school board on next year’s budget.
Having your say: You can submit a written comment to the budget committee or sign up to speak live at meetings using this form. Speakers may be chosen via lottery if more people sign up than there is time available.
The deadline to sign up for live comment or submit written remarks is 3 p.m. the day before the meeting.
Correction: This article originally reversed the number of employees in the general fund for this school year compared to next year. Salem Reporter apologizes for the error.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
SUPPORT OUR WORK – We depend on subscribers for resources to report on Salem with care and depth, fairness and accuracy. Subscribe today to get our daily newsletters and more. Click I want to subscribe!
Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
