Ashland School District Superintendent Joseph Hattrick answers a question at a budget listening session in Helman Elementary School on Dec. 5, 2024.
Jane Vaughan / JPR
Ashland School District had been on track to be in the hole over $1 million at the end of this fiscal year. The district also doesn’t have enough money to cover expenses through next October. Declining enrollment, increased staffing and other factors have contributed to the deficit in the district that serves about 2,600 K-12 students.
But at Thursday’s school board meeting, Superintendent Joseph Hattrick announced the receipt of an anonymous donation of $890,000, which will help ease budget issues.
In addition, the school board approved up to six furlough days to help cut costs. The short-term plan also includes reducing some contracted services, continuing a freeze on discretionary spending, making all field trips cost-neutral, reducing staff through attrition and cutting all expenses for administrator professional development and travel, among other things.
All those efforts together mean the district will save over $2.2 million this fiscal year. This amount allows for any unanticipated costs and gives the district the equivalent of 2.5% reserves.
But it’s not entirely out of the woods yet.
Now, the district has to focus on saving another $3.5 million in cash to make it to November, when property tax payments arrive, and on creating a long-term plan for financial stability.
Hattrick was not available for an interview on Monday.
The district does not anticipate laying off any staff this year, although it did so at the end of the 2023-24 school year.
Ashland School District is not alone in its financial struggles. Many districts throughout the state are also facing budget deficits. However, Ashland chose to spend its federal COVID relief money on more than 70 new full-time staff, meaning that fund balance was in the red by almost $800,000 at the beginning of this fiscal year.
That hiring decision has caught up with the district, as it spends about 85% of its general fund expenses on salaries and benefits. The employee attrition that school officials expected has not occurred, and meanwhile enrollment has declined so that the district currently has about 300 fewer students than it did in 2017.
The district recently held a series of community listening sessions to inform residents about the dire financial situation and gather feedback on how to address the problem.
At one of them, Hattrick — who has only been on the job since July — expressed optimism that the district will be able to successfully address the crisis.
“It’s what I signed up for. I mean, I have had success with dealing with this, not to this extent, but I’m confident that as a community we can solve it together,” he said. “It’s just going to take time and patience. The biggest challenge is no decision, no decision, is going to please everybody.”
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