MARYSVILLE — The Marysville School District will be conducting staff and public forums on the state’s mid-school year budget cuts on Jan. 13.

The Marysville School District Board Room, located at 4220 80th St. NE, will serve as the site for a 3 p.m. forum for secondary school staff, a 4:15 p.m. forum for elementary school staff and a 7 p.m. community forum that will be open to the public.

Before the winter holiday break, the state government made moves to take back more than $2.3 million in funds that it had already committed to the Marysville School District, in the middle of the current school year.

Marysville School District Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland informed attendees of the Dec. 20 MSD Board of Directors meeting that these funds included $2.3 million in Ed Jobs money from the federal government, as well as half of the K-3 class size reduction funds, which he estimated to be about $600,000, which would pay for K-3 teachers whom the school district has already hired. He also reported at that meeting that the state has likewise taken back an estimated $252,218 in levy equalization funds, as well as $21,000 in I-728 and other funds that the school district has already spent.

Nyland noted that this mid-year budget reduction is as nearly equal to the annual budget reductions that the school district has undergone in the past two years.

In immediate response to Gov. Christine Gregoire’s recommendations, on top of the education budget cuts already made by the state Legislature, the Marysville School District has restricted travel, extra time, overtime and substitutes for its classified staff, reduced its building budgets by 18 percent, and suspended its supply budgets, new hires, and training and texts from the BEA.

Even with the implementation of proposed measures such as a 10 percent Reduction In Force in its operations staff and a 2 percent salary reduction from all its employee groups, the district could still be facing a remaining budget shortfall of nearly $1 million.

Nyland identified early February as the district’s target to make any cuts, since that’s the deadline to revise the budget for the remainder of the school year.

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