The Kent School Board wants more specifics from staff about the $7 million in budget cuts being made for the rest of the 2025-2026 school year due mainly to declining school enrollment.
Board Vice President Donald Cook asked Superintendent Israel Vela and his staff for more information about the budget cuts during a Dec. 3 work session. Vela said he would provide specifics during a Jan. 7 budget workshop.
“We need to have a better idea of what cuts we’re going to be making,” said Cook, who ran the work session due to the absence of Board President Meghin Margel. “When I asked the community about questions that they had, they gave me a few different questions and all of them are related to what we’re doing specifically and that’s where I think people are really concerned.
“I would like for us to be able to say yes, we’re going to look at this. We’re going to figure out where it is that we are going to be cutting or where we already have made cuts and come back to our community because that’s where people are getting anxious.”
Vela told the board in November that staff had cut about $7 million in the 2025-2026 budget with reductions in central administrative office materials and supplies and leaving central office positions vacant. A $5.2 million cut in central administrative office materials, supplies, operations and costs didn’t get into specifics.
The district listed on its website the central office positions left vacant to save about $1.9 million. The positions include two executive assistants, a facilities specialist, five information technology (IT) temporary interns, an IT analyst, a network specialist, two data services and support specialist, a data analyst, a digital learning technology specialist and several other part-time positions.
Vela said they couldn’t make cuts of contracted employees for this school year but reductions could be made in the central administrative office.
“We can come back with that with the board on Jan. 7,” Vela said.
District staff confirmed, at least at this time, that no further cuts will be needed, especially since $6 million in federal funds will be coming to Kent for 2025-2026 after it appeared those funds might be in jeopardy. Whether those federal funds will be available for 2026-2027 remains uncertain.
Raul Parungao, executive director of finance for the district, told the board with enrollment projected to continue to decline, the board will face about a $35 million budget deficit for the 2026-2027 school year. Staff and the board will begin work on that budget next month and adopt a budget in June.
“This ($35 million) is the minimum amount to maintain 5% unassigned fund balance,” Parungao said. “Enrollment decline reduces revenues faster than we can reduce expenditures and state funding is not catching up with the increasing costs of doing business, thus the budget deficit.”
Declining enrollments
District staff projected 24,222 students for the 2025-2026 budget adopted in June 2025, but that number dropped to 23,430 in October, a decline of 792 students. Staff projects enrollment to be 23,192 in 2026-2027, and 22,857 in 2027-2028, a decline of 1,365 students in just three years.
Cook asked Parungao how the student forecast could be off by nearly 800 students this year. Fewer students means less state funding, which is based on how many students are in a district.
Parungao said part of the reason is a declining birth rate. But he added that another reason is more students are leaving the district than transferring into it from other districts.
“I think some of the numbers are pretty glaring when when we looked at it earlier (last) week,” Parungao said. “I don’t have all the exact information at this time, but that is something that we’re actively studying is like how much of this district transfer in and out really is affecting our enrollment. And if there is a massive amount of transfer out, what is it that we could do to keep them here.”
Lisa Tylor, district director of budget, said staff took a conservative estimate in enrollment over the next couple of years because of the recent decline.
Other key highlights
As district staff and the board prepare future budgets, a couple of key dates are in 2027:
• Levy expires: Parungao told the board the levy passed by voters in 2023, to replace an expiring levy for school programs and operations, expires Dec. 31, 2027. A measure will go to voters Feb. 9, 2027 to replace that levy for tax collections starting in 2028.
“It is critical to maintain or increase this funding source,” Parungao said.
The levy passed in November 2023 with just 50.8% of the vote.
• Teachers contract expires: The district’s contract with the Kent Education Association (teachers union) is approved through 2026-2027. The district and union approved a three-year contract in 2024. Salaries for teachers make up a large portion of the annual budget. A dispute between the district and union led to a nine-day strike by teachers in 2022 before reaching an agreement.
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