Toppenish School District faces $9 million deficit, more than 40 staff positions cut

TOPPENISH, Wash. -- The Toppenish School District said a $9 million deficit for the 2024/2025 school year prompts more than 40 district or school staff positions to be removed.

After TSD created a budget advisory committee to get input and ideas on how to address the budget shortfall.

The district said 80% of its budget is going towards district and school staff or personnel.

TSD said to outweigh the deficit due to employees, positions will be reduced. Salaries and benefits will also be reduced and cut for nearly all district staff or school/department staff.

The district will be removing 3 school administrative positions, 10 teaching positions, 2 graduation specialists, 7 classified staff positions and 1 supervisor.

TSD said 24 other positions were also removed or reduced because of retirement or resignations.

"This is painful work, and these are painful conversations to have to reach this level of budget reduction, but it’s necessary for the District to move forward and continue to serve students in a meaningful way. We welcome parents, staff, and community members to reach out with questions or concerns. The best way to stay informed is to attend upcoming school board meetings. The next school board meeting is April 23rd from 7-9 p.m. at the District Office." TSD said.

Several districts are facing the same funding challenge but some of the reasons the Toppenish School District said its funding fell short was because of the new "state-of-the-art" preschool.

The grant funding that was expected to build the preschool did not get received by the school district which caused the district to take money from its funding reserves to make up for the $5 million lost.

Another issue is student enrollment. There has not been an uptick in enrollment since the COVID-19 pandemic. TSD said there has been a 6% loss of public school enrollment across the state.

250 alternative learning education students also were lost which reduced funding.

TSD said "Toppenish property values have significantly increased. However, that means levy equalization funding provided by the state for school districts with lower property values has decreased significantly. A lot of unforeseen issues surfaced at one time that we had no way of anticipating. Right now, our main objective is dealing with the situation in front of us while still providing the high-quality education our students deserve."

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