By SHAYLA ESCUDERO/Lincoln Chronicle
The Lincoln County School District is facing a $2.8 million budget deficit for fiscal 2025-26 — and future budgets may have a larger gap with less resources to plug the holes.
Every year, fewer students are enrolling in the district’s schools, a trend across Oregon since the Covid pandemic. The district is losing about 100 students – mostly elementary aged – a year. A district enrollment study last year projected the district would lose nearly 1,000 students over the next 10 years – about a quarter of the district’s current total enrollment of 4,163 students.
Enrollment is dropping because Lincoln County attracts an older population, the birth rate continues to decline, families move to seek jobs and housing elsewhere, and parents opt to homeschool or send their children to private school.
Most school funding from the state is calculated using enrollment, so as the school district loses students, it also loses money.
While Gov. Tina Kotek’s proposed 2025-27 budget has an estimated $11 billion towards the state’s school fund, up from the $10.2 billion approved in the previous biennium, many schools are still operating at a deficit because of rising costs and declining enrollment.
Superintendent Majalise Tolan is proposing the school district dip into its reserves to fill the $2.8 million gap in her $181 million budget for 2025-26.
“… the district continues to face financial challenges due to declining student enrollment and escalating operational costs,” Tolan said in her budget letter. “As a result, LCSD faced a $2.8 million shortfall in the operating budget during this first year of the biennium and expects even tougher financial decisions ahead in 2026-2027.”
The district’s budget committee, made up of five board members and five community members, met Thursday, May 15 to discuss the proposed budget.
“I appreciate that we have put money away in reserves, but I don’t want this to be a trend,” said board member Liz Martin. “When you use those one time funds the hole is going to be bigger the next year.”
To fill the gap this year the district is using at least $1 million in cash reserves to balance the proposed budget and $1.3 million from a one-time wildfire grant. The district will not fill six vacant education elementary school positions to make up for the loss. The positions cut by attrition include one position from Oceanlake, Taft and Sam Case elementary schools and two positions from Toledo Elementary School. A long-term substitute teacher position will also be left vacant.
If enrollment goes up – which is unlikely – the district would consider refilling the positions, Tolan told the Lincoln Chronicle.
“I really believe in the cuts through attrition because we are eliminating positions, not people,” Tolan said last week. “Next year we will have to prepare ourselves for a longer conversation and community input.”
Facing the potential loss of wildfire grant money in 2026-27 and the uncertainty of federal programs under the Trump administration, Tolan said, the district may need to replace some of those funds that provide direct services to students and staff.
Like many district budgets, the largest expense is employee costs — 61 percent of the general fund budget.
Neighboring districts have already had to make tough decisions amid budget deficits caused by declining enrollment. Last year, for example, the Corvallis School District approved a budget that included an $8.2 million in reductions, for example, and expects to make another $3 million in cuts for 2025-26.
“The reality is we are going to be down next year,” Martin said, “But we don’t panic, we plan.”
The budget committee approved Tolan’s proposed spending plan during its meeting last week, putting it up for possible adoption at the board’s June 10 meeting.
The proposed $181 million budget can be viewed on the district’s website.
- Shayla Escudero covers Lincoln County government, education, Newport, housing and social services for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at Shayla@LincolnChronicle.org
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