With the beginning of the 2024-25 fiscal year less than two weeks away, the Philomath School Board took care of needed business Thursday night by approving a $54.2 million budget during its regular monthly meeting.
Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said following the meeting that she feels good about where the district is sitting with the budget, including the $19.4 million in unappropriated and reserve amounts.
Rising enrollment contributed to the school’s positive situation with the financial numbers. In 2022-23, the district’s total enrollment came in at 1,580. The count this year was 1,660 — an increase of 80 students.
“We’ve added students and so we’ve stayed stable where a number of districts are losing students,” Halliday said about the budgetary impact.
Jennifer Griffith, business manager, said the enrollment numbers exceeded forecasting that the district had in place.
“I didn’t anticipate them to be that high when we started ’23-’24,” she said. “When we came into the school year and they kept growing throughout the school year, it was a bit of a surprise. So then we changed our estimate of membership and enrollment and that’s when the state school fund increased for us.”
Another positive budget impact involved how pandemic-related funds were used, Halliday said. Statewide, schools received $1.6 billion in federal COVID relief funds to improve educational outcomes during the pandemic. Schools have spent nearly all of the money.
Halliday said Philomath utilized its pandemic-related funding in a different way compared to some other school districts.
“We made some difficult fiscal decisions with COVID relief funds to not put a lot of our staff into those funds,” Halliday said. “While some districts now are having to back people out of those funds that no longer exist, we chose not to go that route all throughout the COVID years and use that money for as many other things as we could. So we didn’t have the people to back out of that soft funding.”
Elsewhere in the budget, Griffith said supplies and services saw a significant increase in cost.
“The percentage increase of those has been crazy — 12 to 14 or 15%,” she said.
Insurance costs have also gone up in the neighborhood of 15%, she added.
“But payroll is the biggest bulk of our budget,” Griffith said. “An incremental increase in that just goes across the whole budget.”
Unlike some other Oregon school districts, Philomath is not facing staff cuts this year. In fact, Halliday said the district is adding a special education teacher in response to a critical need in that department.
The cost of technology will continue to be an area to closely monitor.
“We know technology is going to be big … it’s the phone system and everything else,” Halliday said. “They are really doing a great job of being fiscally creative and solution finders in a really proactive, good way to be able to do the best to minimize what the costs could be. But we know those are going to be some big ones right there.”
The district’s phone system and keycard access upgrades are among the needs.
“There’s just some things like that that we’re doing for the purposes of safety and things that need to be done,” Halliday said.
As far as capital projects, the district will not see any high-dollar ticket items in 2024-25. Griffith mentioned various maintenance issues that need to be completed, such as painting, carpet replacement, baseball and football grandstands repairs, and work on the high school parking lot.
No changes were made when it comes to Clemens Community Pool.
“We’re funding it as normal,” Griffith said. “We’re still doing our general fund transfer and getting our endowment to keep it afloat.”
There were no comments during a public hearing on the budget and Griffith said she received none via email. The board unanimously approved the budget through two resolutions — one to make appropriations and the other to impose and categorize the tax.
Board handles ‘complaint‘
Also during the meeting, the board briefly addressed an issue in what was described as a complaint against the administration.
“We had a complaint against the superintendent,” Board Chair Rick Wells said. “We addressed it in the executive session and we are prepared to make a statement in open session.”
Other than a prepared motion, however, there was no statement of any substance about what the complaint specifically involved. As read by board member Joe Dealy, the motion was to “move to accept the public complaint and to delegate the authority to the board chair to respond to the complaint.”
A person familiar with a June 11 letter sent to the School Board said it involved a staff safety issue. Earlier in the evening, comments about a safety concern were mentioned during a Philomath Education Association report.
“I know the teachers sent the board some concerns recently over safety and I also know that the teachers came here a year ago and also addressed some concerns,” PEA co-president Nicole Stueve said. “I just really hope that the board takes that into consideration. And I believe you guys feel the same way — that we need a district that’s proactive and not reactive when concerns arise and so I’m just hoping you keep that in mind moving forward.”
For the issue at hand, Wells said he would “be reaching out to the complainant and the respondent.”
In other news out of the June 20 meeting:
• The board approved a consent agenda that included a list of bills, minutes and personnel adjustments. Leave of absence requests were approved for language arts teacher Chad Matthews and Career and Technical Education Coordinator and teacher Jessica Hanson. Resignations included girls tennis coach Greg Thorson and athletics administrative assistant Amanda Bauer. Among the new hires were teachers Haiely Van Essen (Clemens Primary music), Tyler McConnell (PHS and PMS special education), Savanna Sanders (PHS math) and Jenny Workman (PHS Spanish). Donna Carter, whose retirement had been accepted, was hired back at less than full time for health and career and technical education. Mitch Gross was hired as a PMS success coach, a position that had formerly been temporary. Several others are receiving staff reassignments or changes in employment status (full-time to part-time, etc.).
• The board approved an increase in the number of interdistrict transfer students at Clemens Primary School by five.
• Halliday announced that a labor agreement with the Oregon School Education Association’s Philomath chapter was reached and ratified by both sides. The agreement runs through June 2026.
• The board approved a resolution to appropriate $275,000 in the current fiscal year budget. The funds were greater than what had originally been budgeted from interest income on the district’s Local Government Investment Pool account. The money was placed in the general fund and categorized under instruction and support services.
• The board agreed to hold regular meetings this summer on Tuesday, July 9 and Thursday, Aug. 22 — both departures from the regular meeting time on the third Thursday of each month.
• The board approved several policy updates and eliminated others that had become obsolete or replaced.
