The Santa Barbara Unified School District will look to financially tighten its belt in the coming years, but on Tuesday night, the board voted 5-0 to approve its $176 million budget for 2019-20.
The district is projecting an operating deficit of $10.4 million.
“We need to make some changes, obviously,” said Meg Jette, assistant superintendent for business services.
Staff will close the books by mid-August, and the district typically ends the year slightly better than projections. It spends about 82 percent of its budget on salaries and benefits for employees.
The district is anticipating a 4 percent increase in property taxes in fiscal years 2021 and 2022, but it’s also facing a decline in student enrollment.
“I don’t see us coming out of the decline until 2024 that is projected in our live births countywide,” Jette said.
Superintendent Cary Matsuoka said that “if you go out to the ’23-’24 year, we will decline 10 percent of our enrollment from 2016.”
Matsuoka, however, said there is some financial benefit to the decline in enrollment.
“The financial benefit of that is that, as we lose kids, and our revenue stays steady with property taxes, we need to take advantage of that by just staffing smart,” Matsuoka said.
At the end of 2015, the district had 14,200 students. This year, it had 13,475 students. By 2025, the number is expected to drop to 12,670 students.
The district also is facing a challenge with its Food Services Department.
The department is projecting to end the 2018-19 fiscal year with a deficit of about $766,788, most of which was carried forward from last year. The program faces a challenge from the increase in labor costs, rising cost of pensions and the amount of time takes skilled employees to prepare fresh vegetables, fruit, raw meats and poultry.
In 2018-19, three of its high schools were selected to re-apply for their provision status for free.
“It is imperative to provide healthy meals for our students so that they can focus on learning, however it is equally imperative to stay within the budget,” the budget staff report states. “
The district plans to review each of its contracts and examine costs for the program.
“We will review the labor force to ensure we are accurately staffed in both the kitchens and Mobile Cafés,” the staff report states. “The department will continue to reduce labor cost by attrition and by placing a hiring freeze on new positions.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.