As the state Legislature begins to tackle Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget proposal next week, the Renton School District is already facing a $850,000 loss for the current school year or 18 1/2 positions.

That shortfall is the result of the voter repeal in November of the candy and bottled water tax, Initiative 1107. Even deeper budget cuts could come as the as the Legislature tries to fill a multibillion-dollar hole in state revenues for the next biennium.

How much more the school district might lose isn’t known yet.

“What we’ve heard so far is that because of the loss of revenue that the state is going to have to make reductions in a lot of different programs and the worst for us is just that we’re losing approximately about $850,000 from the state that was being earmarked for certified staffing in kindergarten through fourth grade,” said Rich Moore, assistant superintendent of operations for Renton School District.

That amounts to 18 1/2 positions. That’s $850,000 less money the district will have to work with beginning in February.

It doesn’t mean the district will reduce the number of teachers; officials are looking at a lot of options, said Moore.

Moore expects the district will continue with the loss of the enhanced kindergarten through fourth grade staffing formula into the next biennium. What that means is, they assume they may not be able to keep class sizes at current levels next year.

This loss could affect the opening of Honey Dew Elementary School, if it opens as a kindergarten through fifth grade school next year.

“If the state dramatically reduces the teacher allocation to the district, that would mean higher class sizes for the district potentially and if class sizes are increased across the board, that may delay the opening of Honey Dew,” Moore said.

The district has already approved boundary changes in the event the school does open.

For the coming biennium budget, district officials don’t know exactly where cuts will occur, but there are lots of possibilities on the table. They could come in the form of a reduction in the school year from 180 days to 175, reducing the Learning Assistance Program or the gifted program, said Moore. Those are just some of the possibilities, he said.

“It’s always a worst-case scenario,” said Randy Matheson, Renton School District spokesperson, of the governor’s proposal for a balanced budget.

He noted that the budget process is a lengthy one but said the governor’s proposal is just a starting point for the district.

Matheson said school officials are concerned about the number of cuts to education, but he cited examples of when the governor’s cuts were put back in by the Legislature.

Last year, Gregoire’s initial budget cuts amounted to $6.1 million to the district. But after the Legislature’s work the actual cut to the Renton School District budget was $4.3 million, he said.

The gifted program was cut out last year too but put back in by the Legislature.

Matheson said over the last four years they have had to cut the budget by about $18 million.

With state revenues decreasing and the addition of about 100 new students to the district every year, “it’s concerning,” he said.

The district will try and cut as far away from the classroom as possible, possibly hitting administration, staffing, maintenance and operations.

For the last four years, administration, meaning principals to the superintendent, have been asked to cut their pay by three days. Last year, they also reduced administrative staff by five positions. The district will look at cutting staff members who aren’t in the classroom and programs not directly in classrooms.

“With cuts every year, it’s getting more and more difficult to keep cuts out of the classroom,” Matheson said.

As the Legislature tries to firm up details of the state budget, the school district will respond with its own budget, taking into account what the state decides upon.

It’s a bouncing back-and-forth process, said Matheson.

The process also takes into account community input from meetings where advice from the community is solicited on key budget areas that the community is interested in either maintaining or possibly reducing.

In the spring the school district will finalize its budget based on what the Legislature has done and again present that to the community.

“The difficulty for school districts is that the legislative session ends and they go home,” Moore said. “And then the district is still out there trying to balance the budget and most of the cuts are created by the lack of state revenue being able to be provided, but most people forget about that and they just blame the district directly.”

Community meetings on the school budget are scheduled for the end of January and beginning of February.