After all the ballots were in and counted last Tuesday, schools lost big in Central Oregon with significant fundraising attempts failing in Deschutes and Crook County.
In Crook County, a district bond to repair and update schools failed with 52.9% voting against. Snowstorms earlier in the year prompted the $11.5 million bond for repairs at Crook County Middle School, where a leaky gym roof was made worse and concerns over other aging infrastructure were exacerbated.
“The roofs will continue to experience leaks, malfunctioning boilers may cause delays in opening schools, but school will go on,” Scott Cooper, Crook County school board director wrote in an email to the Source Weekly. Bonds, which are used for major facility improvements and replacements, have struggled in Crook County in recent years. The last time voters supported a school district bond was in 2012 for the construction of a new elementary school.
“The last two bonds have failed,” Cooper said. “With each failure, the needed work doesn’t disappear; the price tag just gets higher.”
Likewise in Deschutes County, voters rejected Bend La-Pine Schools’ levy that would have raised $22 million annually over the next five years through a property tax of $1 per $1,000 assessed value.
Michael Mackie, a Bend resident with a child at High Desert Middle School, is a bus driver for the district and said that despite supporting the schools and understanding the struggle in the classroom, he voted against the measure.
“I believe it’s not the right time to ask for it,” Mackie said. “Housing costs are out of control and rents are astronomical right now. It was an interesting time to ask.”
Steve Cook, Bend-La Pine Schools’ superintendent, said that while he is disappointed the measure failed, he did feel it was a clear message from voters like Mackie.
“To me, the community is saying that this ask at this time is not appropriate,” Cook said, adding that the first thing to figure out for the district is if it was the ask, the amount or the timing that was specifically missed.
The levy was touted as a way to stave off cuts, maintain average class sizes and provide enhancements to programming for students because of a “funding shortfall from the state.” Without the additional support, the district said, average class sizes could increase by four students per class and over 180 positions would be eliminated over the next two years — a significant hit to the state’s fifth largest district, which is already dealing with declining enrollment numbers and soaring rates of chronic absenteeism.
According to a data analysis by Oregon Public Broadcasting, Bend La-Pine Schools nearly doubled its chronic absenteeism rate – going from 21.1% of students being chronically absent (defined as missing 10% of the school year, or about 18 days) in 2019 to 39.7% in 2023. This is slightly above the state average of 38%.
Enrollment numbers at the district have also suffered post pandemic. In 2019, just over 18,500 students were enrolled at BLPS. Next school year, the district projects a further decrease in enrollment, anticipating just under 17,000 students – a loss of around 170 from this school year and over 1,500 since the 2019/2020 school year.
Funding Challenge
BLPS hoped to raise enough funds over five years to make up for a smaller-than-expected increase in funding from the state, and an end in September to federal funds that were part of a stimulus package known as ESSER to help schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposed budget for 2024/2025 school year, the second funding year of the biennium, is about $237 million – a bump of 9.7% rather than the expected 12%. The district says this money is needed, despite serving fewer students, because of rising costs in personnel salaries, state retirement system contributions and the district’s share of employee health insurance premiums.
“Therefore, the gap between our operating costs and our state support is widening,” Scott Maben, director of communications wrote in an email to the Source Weekly. “This has forced us to use budget reserves and our ESSER funding to help cover our increasing costs. That means the district has been using one-time funding just to maintain operations.”
As it stands, with the levy failing, the district plans to cut 60 positions for next school year through retirement and attrition, reduce individual school’s discretionary spending by 10% and increase class size by an average of two students per class. If the state doesn’t significantly increase its funding in the next biennium, the cuts will get deeper, with potentially 120 more positions cut and classrooms averaging four more students than today’s numbers. These changes would be widely felt.
“I am concerned about the impacts that will fall on our members, on our educators’ shoulders,” said Sarah Barclay, president of the Bend Education Association, which represents teachers and other licensed professionals in the district. “They are asked to do so much already.”
What’s Next
Looking ahead to the next biennium and the 2025-26 school year, Maben says the funding dilemma could be even more pronounced. “This is why Dr. Cook and other superintendents around Oregon are pushing hard for the legislature to change the funding level for public education,” he said.
Barclay said the union is also planning to advocate at the state level. “We need to make sure that our current service level calculation is accurate and that we’re not starting out at a deficit,” she said.
In November, Gov. Tina Kotek announced next steps for reviewing and updating the state’s K-12 education funding. The state’s school funding system underwent a fundamental change in 1990 with passage of Measure 5, which capped local property taxes and changed how public schools were funded. It flipped the primary funding source for schools from local communities to the state through the State School Fund set by the Legislature. But, as noted in the Governor’s announcement, “Local communities maintain local governance of school districts and debates about whether funding is adequate and sufficient persist.”
At the state level, Rep. Emerson Levy’s office is also working to advocate for Central Oregon schools.
“As a mom of a student in the Bend-La Pine Schools district, I see firsthand the urgency in which we must respond to the underfunding of our education system,” Levy wrote in a statement to the Source Weekly, adding that a collaborative effort is needed.
These changes are at least a year away. But in a few weeks, on June 18, the Bend La-Pine School Board will meet to vote on next year’s proposed budget or recommend changes. And, per law, the district will have to have a balanced budget in place by June 30.
— This story is powered by the Lay It Out Foundation, the nonprofit with a mission of promoting deep reporting and investigative journalism in Central Oregon. Learn more and be part of this important work by visiting layitoutfoundation.org.
This article appears in Source Weekly May 30, 2024.
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Steve Cook, Bend-La Pine Schools’ superintendent, said that while he is disappointed the measure failed, he did feel it was a clear message from voters like Mackie. “To me, the community is saying that this ask at this time is not appropriate,” Cook said, adding that the first thing to figure out for the district is if it was the ask, the amount or the timing that was specifically missed.
It was the timing pure and simple. This measure failure in Bend-La Pine is all on the Bend City Council which provided a $10.5million gift to a developer for a project that is overwhelmingly “market rate” housing, not affordable housing; along with the same City Council putting the transportation fees directly at current residents rather than tapping into the very lucrative and underpaying tourism industry by not putting added fees on the lodging that out of towners (who also extensively use our roads) should be paying to support the infrastructure. The voters in the La Pine voted for fire department levies, so they value good service and the last few levies for Bend-La Pine have been approved which points out the ask is still valid. If there is anyone to point fingers at for the failure, simply look at the city council of Bend.