Edmonds School District faces estimated $8.5 million deficit

LYNNWOOD — The Edmonds School District is facing an estimated $8.5 million budget shortfall for the 2025-26 school year.

At a Feb. 11 school board study session, Lydia Sellie, the district’s executive director of business and finance, said the district will have to find additional cuts or revenue sources.

The deficit is smaller than what the district had in the past two years. For the 2023-24 school year, the district faced a $15 million deficit. Last year, it was $10.6 million.

These shortfalls led the district to make controversial cuts, such as fifth-grade music and student intervention coordinator positions.

“The impacts become cumulative,” Superintendent Rebecca Miner said at the session.

Expected expenditures for the 2025-26 school year include library materials, wage increases, insurance premiums and election costs.

The $8.5 million figure is only an estimate. The final number depends on factors such as final enrollment data, upcoming contract negotiations and some bills in the state Legislature.

Two bills in the Legislature — HB 1356 and SB 5593 — would increase the amount the district can collect from its educational programs and operations levy. Right now, state law only allows the district to collect a portion of the levy that voters approved in 2022. Other bills could increase funding for special education, operating costs and transportation.

“Last year, there were really no bills that we were watching at this time of year,” Sellie said. “Now, there’s lots of great discussion.”

Without any additional legislation, the district’s levy will still increase by $2 million. The increase is factored into the $8.5 million deficit.

So far, the board has not made any decisions on what to cut. At the session, members briefly mentioned middle school athletics, sixth-grade music and the collaborative literacy program as potential cuts, but there was no formal discussion. The board also mentioned raising field rental fees and asking more businesses to sponsor its athletic fields.

The district plans to relaunch a tool from last year to gather community input. Using the “Balancing Act” tool, community members had to come up with a certain number of cuts from a list of potential revenue increases and expenditures. Community members could also leave comments about each item.

“We had well over 1,000 responses, and we used that information with our school board to help us determine what we’re going to do for the 24-25 budget,” Sellie said. “So at this time, we’re planning on doing a similar process.”

The business and finance department expects to present its draft budget to the board at the end of June, with the goal of final adoption in mid-July.

The shortfall comes during an uncertain time for federal funding due to recent executive orders from the Trump administration. The district usually sees a minor increase in federal grants, but Sellie said some districts have already seen delays in federal funding.

Earlier this year, the American Institutes for Research learned it must suspend grants by Feb. 10 for a project that helped special education students with the post-high school transition. The Edmonds School District laid off three employees last week who worked for the program, Miner said.

The district also receives federal grants for other special education programs, Title I and nutrition services. So far, these programs have not been impacted, Sellie said.

Sellie said issues in state funding have contributed to consistent budget deficits. The Legislature has introduced bills requiring schools to implement certain projects without providing funding, she said. These include benefits for substitute teachers who work a certain number of hours, paid family medical leave, and mandatory vision and hearing exams for students.

“We just keep trying to carve out people’s time to accomplish these tasks with no additional funding to provide the people who need to do these items, and it just gets harder to get it all done with limited resources,” Sellie said.

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.