Bend-La Pine Schools recently put up a local option levy as a way to make up for the loss of pandemic relief funds. How are the other five Central Oregon school districts moving forward without those funds next year?

Fewer textbooks and supplies will be bought at some school districts, while others planned for the loss of funding and aren’t cutting staff or programs.

School districts used those funds, known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, for costs ranging from HVAC systems to employee salaries. The funds are set to expire in September and districts around the state are scrambling for funding, including through bonds, local option levies and advocacy at the state level.

“What you’re hearing around the state from school boards and superintendents that funding is not adequate this year, that’s accurate,” said Jefferson County School District Superintendent Jay Mathisen. “Something will need to change because the situation is serious at this point.”

Jefferson County and Redmond

The looming end of pandemic relief funds impacted budget planning over the last three years in Jefferson County School District, said Mathisen. The district received over $13 million in pandemic relief funds, and used it primarily for employee salaries.

“We spent the vast majority of the dollars we received on staff, on people, and so in the end, in this very last year of ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds, we still had a significant amount of money being in invested in people,” said Mathisen.

The district is not making any staff or program cuts next year, and will use its surplus to keep everything running in the 2024-25 school year.

“That’s not a situation that we can sustain, and as we read the headlines around the state, with many districts making cuts this year, we will be looking much more like that next year (2025-26 school year), unless funding comes through in a different way than it has from the state,” said Mathisen.

Districts are also facing high inflation rates, and state education funding didn’t keep pace with it at the last session of the Legislature, he said.

The district used the funding for teachers, counselors and social emotional support staff, said Mathisen. Administrators are always on the lookout for grants and outside sources of funding.

Read more: Voters say no to Bend-La Pine Schools levy. Now what?

Redmond School District will undergo a $4 million budget cut next year. The district will make cuts in various areas, including student support hires,  materials, technology and more.

Redmond School District received nearly $18 million in pandemic relief funds.

Sisters, Culver, Crook County

Sisters School District planned for the loss of pandemic relief funding and won’t experience a reduction in staffing, wrote Sherry Joseph, the district’s business manager, in an email.

The district received over $1 million in pandemic relief funds.

Megan VerVaecke, Culver School District’s business manager, said the district will experience a $500,000 deficit next year. Salaries for several employees, which currently come from pandemic relief funds, were moved back to a different section of the district’s budget.

Culver School District received $2.3 million in pandemic relief funds. It was also used to hire a behavior specialist, educational assistants, a new bus, kitchen equipment, technology and curriculum.

The district is hoping that its Student Investment Account funding, state money used to increase a well-rounded education for students, comes in at a higher amount and can be used to pay for a position. Several employees are paid through that fund. Some decisions are not completely finalized for the 2024-25 year, VerVaecke said.

“Other areas that it’s going to affect are things like textbook adoption, our IT services, computers, things like that, we’re having to cut back in those areas and cutting things down to bare bones to make sure we can make it through,” said VerVaecke.

She said administrators worked to avoid cutting staff and programs, knowing that those can be the reason some kids come to school.

“We’re a little bit smaller, I think it’s a little easier for us to adapt that way,” she said.

Crook County Schools used its nearly $9 million in funding for one-time expenses, including a new building and HVAC systems, said Chief Financial Officer Anna Logan in an email.

The district is not feeling the impact of loss of pandemic relief funds with the exception of summer school, she wrote. The summer school program was successful, but does not have the funding to continue.

“We will have to try to find other sources of funding for summer school after 2024, or discontinue summer school except for credit recovery,” she wrote.