Interim Superintendent Brett Lech Schmidt told the Vancouver Public Schools Board of Directors on June 17 that the district will recommend formally increasing its general-fund expenditure capacity at the board’s July meeting to cover higher-than-anticipated costs.

Schmidt said the board will hold a public hearing on the matter and is scheduled to adopt the required state document and resolution in July, after staff completes a line-by-line accounting of revenues and costs.

Schmidt framed the request as largely procedural but driven by several converging financial pressures. He said the district hired staff in the fall to meet stronger-than-budgeted September enrollment, noting “we did end up with about 137 more students in that basic ed core group.” That earlier hiring, he said, produced recurring salary costs the district had expected to cover with sustained enrollment but could not when enrollment did not hold through spring.

He said several factors pushed costs above budgeted levels: larger-than-projected special-education caseloads, increased investment in paraeducators and one-to-one aides, and bargaining-related load and class-size adjustments the district built into its budget as a cushion. “We had never gone into a year with, I think it was 150 less teaching positions,” Schmidt said, describing the difficulty of forecasting overload and class-size costs under unusual staffing patterns.

The superintendent warned that some special-education placements — including residential placements outside district programs — carry very high costs and that the state’s safety-net funding requires districts to cover a portion of incremental costs before the state reimburses. “Safety net doesn't kick in until we pay about $30,000 more than what the state funds for the base funding group,” he said, noting that the district had received some additional safety-net and basic-education funding but that the net effect left reserves thinner than desired.

Schmidt said staff are still reconciling invoices and contractor billing for recently contracted paraeducator positions and other services, which has complicated final year-end accounting. He previewed that the district will present a fuller accounting at the July meeting, including how additional revenues will offset added expenses and how the changes affected the year-end fund balance.

Board members did not take formal action on June 17; Schmidt characterized the presentation as a preview to allow directors to ask questions before the public hearing and formal action in July. He warned the board to expect a “very tight” fund balance by fiscal-year end and said district leaders may need to consider “stop-gap measures” in 2025–26 and “pretty significant reductions” when planning the 2026–27 budget.

Schmidt invited board members to submit detailed questions offline; the formal adoption of any increase in expenditure authority and the related state document will occur at the July board meeting after a public hearing.

The budget preview also included references to other routine upcoming consent items: staff will present a resolution delegating authority to surplus instructional materials and equipment at the July meeting, and policy updates (including changes to capital-asset thresholds) will be brought forward for second reading in July.

Less-critical details: Schmidt asked directors to anticipate additional materials and to direct any technical questions to staff ahead of the July public hearing.