Seattle Public Schools may have shelved plans to close four elementary schools for now, but the district’s crushing budget deficit is going nowhere.
On Tuesday evening, Gina Topp of the SPS Board of Directors held a community meeting at the West Seattle Library.
The budget crisis was a major topic, with Topp saying there is a lot of work to be done to figure out where nearly $100 million is going to come from.
“We spent our rainy day fund, we took out a loan on ourselves, we cut back on the easier things – not that anything is easy to cut – and now we’re at a point where we have $100 million. budget deficit and we are going to have to make some very difficult decisions,” Topp said.
For funding, the district is considering two renewal levies and trying to get more money from the state.
“I was just at a meeting this past week with other school board directors across the state where we talked about how we planned to advocate with the Legislature to ensure we get the funding we need to run our schools,” Topp said.
Sanislo Elementary PTA Vice President Kelly Only-Willems echoed these concerns.
“It sounds like an impossible problem, and honestly, it’s pretty clear that a lack of funding at the state level is the problem. This is not a Seattle issue, this is a Washington state issue and I’m glad we’re going to Olympia and holding our legislators accountable,” said Een-Willems.
During the community meeting, parents shared their concerns about what they call dysfunction in the neighborhood.
Topp agreed that the district needs to rebuild trust with families.
“I think we can do that with transparency and hopefully mutual sharing of information,” Topp said.
Next up for the school board is a budget meeting on Dec. 18.
