The Lake Washington School District (LWSD) plans to offset the state’s major budget cuts to education by using district levy funds, extending the school year and making small reductions in staff through attrition — not layoffs.

The state legislature cut funding for teacher salaries by 1.9 percent in the recently completed session, but an agreement between the district and the teachers’ union will offset any salary reductions, the district announced Wednesday.

LWSD teachers agreed to work two extra days during the school year to avoid a pay cut as a result of an agreement between LWSD and the Lake Washington Education Association (LWEA).

These additional work days would include time devoted to preparing for the grade reconfiguration coming in fall 2012, which will bring the district to a K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 system.

The school year calendar for 2011-12 has been extended to 181 days from 180. Next year, there will be one extra day of instruction on June 21 and the last day of school will be June 22. The other work day for teachers will be May 25, the Friday before Memorial Day. That day was a regular school day, but next year, students will not go to school that day and make up for it at the end of the year. The result is the last day of school will be moved from June 20 to June 22.

“These days will provide great opportunities for teachers and students alike to go to the schools they will be moving to in the fall of 2012, to get a chance to familiarize themselves with their new location in advance,” said LWSD superintendent Dr. Chip Kimball. “Staff will be able to plan additional activities to help students and families prepare for their transition to a new school or new grade.”

Wednesday’s announcement is the result of budget revisions for the 2011-12 after the state slashed $4.6 million from the district budget for the next school year.

Business services coordinator Barbara Posthumus, who presented the proposed budget to school board members at Monday evening’s regular board meeting, said the district plans to make up the shortfall by using levy funds and making small reductions in staff at the kindergarten through fourth-grade level.

In addition, the district will continue to work with other employee groups to maintain salary compensation, similar to the deal struck with teachers.

AVOIDING LAYOFFS

The district will avoid having to make any teacher layoffs as the staff reduction will be done through attrition, but K-4 class size will increase slightly.

According to a LWSD press release, student-teacher ratios at the K-4 level will increase by about one student per class. Kindergarten and first-grade staffing will change from 19-to-1 to 20-to-1; second- and third-grades will shift from 23.9-to-1 to 25-to-1; and fourth-grade will go from 25.12-to-1 to 26.75-to-1.

The release states that class size increases will result in eliminating about 17 to 18 teaching positions, through attrition “as more than that number of teachers retired or resigned at the end of this school year so the positions will simply remain unfilled.”

Posthumus said in preparing the budget, one of her team’s goals was to avoid layoffs — something the district has avoided even as the state continues to cut education funding.

“We have a history in this district of good financial planning,” she said. “No one wants to (have layoffs).”

Since 2009, state cuts to maintain small K-4 classes amounts to more than $13 million — $2.6 million of which are for the 2011-12 budget, which will be voted on at the Aug. 8 board meeting and go into effect Sept. 1.

To minimize cuts to the classroom and avoid teacher layoffs, LWSD has also been making up the difference by reallocating levy funds and making budget cuts in other areas.

“The bottom line is that local levy dollars are filling in the holes the state has dug,” Kimball said. “For 2011-12, levy money will continue to take care of most of the cuts to K-4 class size enhancements. Even with those efforts, we will have a small adjustment in K-4 class sizes.”

During Monday’s meeting, board president Jackie Pendergrass acknowledged that school levies were originally created to enhance and enrich the classroom experience, not cover basic expenses such as programs and salary.

Board member Nancy Bernard added that while the district hasn’t had any layoffs, sacrifices have been made. For example, students now have to pay fees to participate in various activities, including a King County-high $275 athletic fee per sport per student.

OTHER CUTS AND CHALLENGES

Posthumus said some of the district’s fixed costs such as insurance and fuel have also increased for an addition of $400,000 in expenses.

On top of dealing with cuts, another challenge Posthumus and her team faced in preparing the budget was receiving the numbers from the state so late. She said they received the budget from the state on May 24. Normally, they would receive it in April.

“This is one of the latest budgets I can recall,” said Posthumus, who has been in the district’s budget office for 21 years.

She added that the shortened timeframe is a challenge because they have less time to make decisions, but she and her team work on the budget throughout the year — constantly reviewing the numbers in enrollment and staff, along with monitoring the budget.

A public hearing on the budget will be held at the Aug. 8 school board meeting at 7 p.m. at the district office at 16250 NE 74th St. in Redmond, where the board will also vote to adopt the budget. Comments on the $231.3 million general fund budget may be sent to the school board at board@lwsd.org.