MSD budget committee sends plan to board

McMinnville School District’s Budget Committee on Wednesday approved a $154 million spending plan to send to the school board for final approval before June 30.

The proposal includes $104.6 million general fund operating budget for programs and pay personnel in 2025-26. The rest of the budget is earmarked for a variety of funds, including nutrition services, grants, bond debt, insurance, reserve and carryover to prepare the district for the 2026-27 year.

While the general fund is $4 million more than it was in 2024-25, costs are expected to exceed state revenue.

To begin to manage the expected shortfall, the district this spring started reducing some positions to half time and not filling vacancies. In addition, schools at each level decided on ways to trim budgets for next year and the district plans to use some of its reserve funds to avoid additional cuts.

As a result of these measures, Acting Superintendent Steffanie Frost said, McMinnville will not need to cut teaching positions next year.

The $359,000 the district must pay former Superintendent Debbie Brockett as part of her separation agreement was taken from the current year’s budget, Finance Director Jason Hall said, and is not part of the budget proposal.

The school board fired Brockett without cause April 14. She is on leave, and will officially leave the district is late June when her leave ends.

The district is seeking an interim superintendent for the 2025-26 school year and will seek a permanent replacement next year.

The budget committee approved the staff’s budget proposal at their second official meeting; they also met for an information session in April. At its first meeting, the district was still waiting for the state’s May funding forecast, which has since been issued.

The Legislature hasn’t finalized school funding yet, but the forecast is a strong indicator of how much K-12 education will receive in the next biennium.

Unfortunately, Hall said, the forecast was “not promising.”

The governor earlier had proposed $11.36 billion in funding for schools. That figure remains in the May forecast – not the larger amount educators hoped for, he said.

In addition, while the forecast includes federal Title 1 reading program funding — which had been in question because of changes made by the Trump administration — the amount won’t increase next year; for some districts, it may be reduced, Hall said.

McMinnville won’t know exactly how much Title 1 funding it will receive until the end of the month, Hall said.

McMinnville administrators and their counterparts across Oregon also were hoping for a change in the way funding is distributed for special needs students.

Currently, districts can receive additional funds for up to 11% of their students if those students are on individual learning plans. In reality, McMinnville’s percentage of IEPs is closer to 15%, and officials were hoping the state would raise the 11% cap to cover the actual number.

Now the state says there will be no increase in the percentage, Hall and Frost said.

However, they are still hoping the state distributes additional funding for students with the highest-cost disabilities. Providing services for those students can cost tens of thousands of dollars more than the per-student State School Funding.

Currently, the state reimburses districts 25 cents on the dollar for the extra costs for highest-need students, in addition to basic SSF. Oregon officials said they hope to increase that amount to 50 cents on the dollar. Any extra money schools receive will go into the highest-need reimbursement fund.

“We hope, but are not certain,” Frost said.