Battle Ground outlines $20 million in potential cuts if replacement levy fails

Superintendent Denny Waters presented a draft package of potential budget reductions the district would adopt if the replacement educational operations levy fails on April 22, saying, “The total for those cuts has to reach 20,000,000.”

Waters told the Battle Ground School Board on March 24 that district staff grouped proposed reductions into four categories — safety, instruction and instructional support, enrichment, and operations — and that the draft would be posted publicly the next day. “If the replacement educational operations levy improved in April, the district would not need to make any of these cuts. There would be no cuts,” Waters said.

The list, compiled to identify $20 million in possible reductions for the 2025–26 school year, includes specific personnel and program eliminations and service reductions. In the safety category the draft lists the elimination of all crossing guards (more than 40 positions), elimination of school resource officers and middle school security guards, reductions to high-school security, a cut of eight school counselors (six at primary campuses and two at the high school level), elimination of the drug and alcohol prevention/intervention program (eight positions) and elimination of two contracted full-time mental-health therapists currently provided through the ESD.

Instructional reductions in the draft include raising the minimum enrollment needed to run some advanced-placement courses (Waters noted the district currently requires roughly 18 students for an AP offering and that number could be raised to 25 if levy funding is not available), elimination of all teacher-librarians, elimination of instructional…