The Renton School Board has voted to adopt a total budget of $572,050,289 for the 2025-2026 school year after the budget proposal was presented at the board meeting on June 25.
From the presentation by Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Jennifer A. Farmer, the budget outlook is “very tight, with little room for unknown needs or unexpected fluctuations” where expenditures must “continue to slow” while overtime and other non-contracted extra pay “must be lessened.” During the meeting, it was mentioned that there are rumors of “some shenanigans going on at the federal level” that would affect school budgets.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen, but [superintendents are] giving us that alert so that districts can be prepared if there are any impacts there,” said Renton Superintendent Dr. Damien Pattenaude. According to a June 30 Learning Policy Institute blog post, the federal government has withheld $136,876,849 from Washington state K-12 schools.
The board was presented with the need for another interfund loan, which is a temporary loan of money between one school district and another as defined by state law, as “cash flow is insufficient due to revenue timing.” The interfund loan would come from non-bond proceeds and the current loan will be repaid at “year end.”
According to the Jan. 8 budget planning board study session, the general fund is primarily comprised of revenues from the state, local property taxes and the federal government.
The board adopted the $308,958,270 appropriation of the general fund, which would fund basic education, Ready “K” Kindergarten, Targeted Assistance/ESSER, special education, Career and Technical Education (CTE), title programs, Learning Assistance Program (LAP), Transitional Bilingual Instructional Program (TBIP), Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP), nutrition services, transportation and other programs.
As noted in the F-195 official budget document, excess levies that were approved by voters in 2022 for collection in 2026 will total $44,093,427.
The rest of the budget includes the following:
• Capital Projects Fund: $198,514,700
• Debt Service Fund: $59,178,481
• Transportation Vehicle Fund: $3,884,128
• Associated Student Body Fund: $1,514,710 (which would pay for athletics, classes, clubs, private funds and general student body.)
During the June 25 meeting, Farmer said that the district had previously been “approximately $5 million over anticipated revenues” and that adjustments had been made, like $700,000 from utilities used by CTE students, a budget technical adjustment of $125,000 and a liability insurance adjustment of $140,000, among others.
According to the presentation, 81% of the budget will go to instruction, broken down to the following sub-categories: 45% to regular instruction, 19% to special education instruction, 18% to support services, 8% compensatory instruction, 6% to vocational instruction, 3% to other instruction and 1% to community services.
Budget requirements include that the general fund budget expenditures may not exceed the sum of estimated revenues and unassigned fund balances.
The district’s official budget document and the four-year budget summary are required to be filed with OSPI no later than Aug. 31. The fiscal year runs from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31.
For full access to the district’s budget documents, visit rentonschools.us/departments/business-services/budget.
