Hundreds of fewer teachers and staff will report to Oregon’s two largest school districts next year under budgets moving forward in Salem-Keizer and Portland Public Schools.
The cuts reflect an impossible situation — conditions in schools are worse, but schools have less money to address them, despite record investments from state lawmakers.
Beleaguered school district leaders have pointed all year to expiring federal COVID-19 funds, declining student enrollment, the state’s school funding formula, and increased expenses from inflation and heightened student needs since the pandemic as core reasons for an especially grueling budget season.
Monday evening, budget committees for both Salem-Keizer Public Schools and Portland Public voted to approve their recommended budgets for 2024-25. Both came with caveats.
Salem-Keizer’s budget committee — which includes the school board’s seven members, six appointed community members and one vacant position — voted to recommend the school board adopt the $1.1 billion budget next month.
The committee moved ahead in the process under an agreement with district leadership that administrators would provide the school board with more data on how much the district spends specifically on non-school positions, such as technology, human resources and payroll, which they continuously referred to as “back office” jobs.
Superintendent Andrea Castañeda said leadership can get those figures, but it’s not an easy pull from district data. That’s why she recommended the committee didn’t wait on the numbers to vote.
The vote to send the budget proposal to the school board passed by 9-2 with one committee member absent. The two dissenting voters, school board director Krissy Hudson and community member Kathryn Jones, said they voted against the recommended budget since they did not have the “back office” funding information.
FILE - Students work in a math class at McKay High School in Salem, Ore., on Sept. 13, 2023. Salem-Keizer schools face hundreds of staff cuts next academic year.
Natalie Pate / OPB
The budget committee vote came just after massive layoffs and position changes were announced throughout Salem-Keizer on Friday. Employees have known for months that the district is in the middle of cutting $70 million and eliminating hundreds of positions. But staff received individual notices last week about how they would be affected.
The proposed budget eliminates the equivalent of 377 full-time positions. More than 100 school district employees were told Friday they would be laid off. Unfilled vacancies, reduced hours for some employees, retirements and resignations help account for the remaining cuts.
Close to 1,500 additional employees were notified they would be assigned a new role or moved to a different department or building. This is part of the “bumping” process that prioritizes laid-off employees with more seniority when moving staff around.
In total, the cuts and job reassignments affected nearly a third of the district’s employees. Castañeda said these are the largest cuts the district has seen since the Great Recession in the early 2000s.
“No one runs for school board or asks to be on the budget committee because they want to slash anything that impacts our schools in the way that we have been asked to do here,” said Nancy MacMorris-Adix, a community member and the budget committee chair. This is MacMorris-Adix’s 11th time working on the budget.
“I do trust that in this full year, every rock has been turned,” she said. “And there are people in our community that will disagree with me, but I truly am sorry for the pain that this budget is causing.”
MacMorris-Adix stressed that this isn’t an “us” versus “them” moment, referring to district and board officials versus school employees and the community at large. She said the state needs to do more, and everyone — including the superintendent, her staff and union members — needs to come together to make that happen. It’s a sentiment that’s been echoed by school leaders across the state all year.
“We cannot underfund our schools year upon year, upon year, upon year, and expect to get a great education to our kids,” she said. “[This] is not of the district’s causing. And we have to do better in fighting for our kids.”
To the north on Interstate 5, the same concerns were shared during the Portland Public Schools’ budget conversation Monday evening.
Portland Public is facing a $30 million deficit right now. Under the budget proposal, PPS will cut some 250 positions districtwide for the next school year.
PPS’ Community Budget Review Committee presented the proposed budget to the school board on May 7. The review committee has 12 volunteer members and two student representatives appointed by the board.
The Portland Public school board this week tentatively approved its approximately $2.4 billion budget. The vote to formally adopt the budget will be in June.
There was a catch.
School board members on Monday added an amendment that will allow the board to restore $1.8 million to the district’s Racial Equity and Social Justice contract budget. Board members may further revisit the amendment when they vote in June.
Without that amendment, proposed budget cuts would have threatened specialty programs like those provided by Self Enhancement Inc., known as SEI. SEI is a year-round program that gives Black students and their families support for academics, parental involvement, college and career preparation, exposure to the arts and more.
Among those who testified to the school board on Monday were a handful of students and alumni who shared how invaluable these programs have been to them.
The board members proposing the amendment said they plan to get the extra money to support these programs by dipping into the district’s reserve funds — essentially, the district’s savings account.
District policy requires the board to keep a minimum of 5% of PPS’ annual general fund revenues in the district’s savings.
The proposed $1.8 million additional spending for the Racial Equity and Social Justice contracts would likely mean the district’s savings would dip below that required minimum. The board could still move ahead with that spending if it approves a waiver to its policy.
School board members have directed Interim Superintendent Sandy Husk to bring them any new proposals regarding the Racial Equity and Social Justice funding no later than June 3 for those changes to be included in the adopted budget they vote on June 11.
School board member Andrew Scott argued an amendment like this should have been brought up to the board much sooner in the budget process; member Julia Brim-Edwards said key information for the proposed amendment wasn’t received by the board until this week.
FILE - Portland Public Schools Board of Education member Andrew Scott on Nov. 28, 2023. Scott raised concerns about late changes to budget recommendations at a meeting Monday night.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
In the end, the amendment narrowly passed with four board members in favor of incorporating it into the budget recommendation. Members Scott and Patte Sullivan voted against it, and member Eddie Wang abstained. Student representative Frankie Silverstein also abstained, saying she didn’t feel like there was enough clarity on the financial impact.
The school board then passed the overall preliminary budget, as amended, on a 6-1 vote. Chair Gary Hollands voted against it. He said he’s voted “no” on budget committee recommendations multiple times over the years as a symbol of protest.
“We do not have the funds available to be able to serve our kids the way we need to,” he said shortly after the vote.
Portland Public is in an especially challenging position this budget season since it had a superintendent leadership change in the middle of the school year. Portland Public is also pushing for the renewal of a local option levy on Tuesday’s ballot. If approved, it would continue to bring in supplemental money for educators.
“I’ve seen and heard personal stories that make me wonder how so many talented people can stay in the teaching profession,” said school board member Sullivan. “I’m hoping that they will and that we can give them the conditions they need to demonstrate the kind of teaching that our children need and deserve.”
Sullivan said next year’s PPS budget is not going to make anybody happy. But she speculated that’s better than having “some areas go unscathed and others devastated.”
“I know that staff has worked long and hard to squeeze the most value that they can from the sources that we have,” she said, “and that gives me some comfort.”