Wayland Union Schools is operating under a spending freeze as of this week. Supt. Tim Reeves this evening responded to a Townbroadcast inquiry about the development.
“Our business department staff have been aligning our various budgets and in the process started to notice the trend of our general fund expenses starting to outpace the revenue for this school year.
“As a result, we are implementing a district wide spending freeze on ‘non-essential purchases’ so we can make any adjustments to control expenses between now and the end of the school year. Put into real numbers, we are talking about a 4% correction, overall.
“We have been seeing a trend of decreasing student enrollment, starting with the 2019-20 school year, and our funding formula directly relates to our number of students. Additionally, the COVID era ESSER funds that increased our budgets for a time period, have ended.
“Please remember, we are only talking about our general fund, which is one of six budgetary funds. I share this to say, we cannot use bond, food service, public improvement, debt, or student activity funds to cover costs in our general fund budget.
“Assistant Superintendent of Finance & Operations Leslie Wagner gave our board a presentation around this topic two days ago at our board (work session) meeting.”
