2026-27 Budget
Budget Development
This list is preliminary. It reflects the district’s current and projected financial information, projected 2026-27 state revenues, negotiated wage, and benefit increases for OSEA and RAA in year 3 of their contracts. It reflects the district’s proposals for wages and benefits for REA.
Impacted Groups |
Approx FTE
|
|
|
Elementary Schools |
Class Ratio Adjustment (1:28) Reduced or Discontinued:
|
- 51 |
|
Middle Schools |
Class Ratio Adjustment (1:34) Reduced or Discontinued:
|
- 31 |
|
High Schools |
Class Ratio Adjustment (1:34) Reduced or Discontinued:
|
- 24 |
|
K-12 Supports |
Reduced or Discontinued:
|
- 12 |
|
Centralized Services |
Reduced or Discontinued:
|
- 14 |
|
Special Education |
Reduced or Discontinued:
|
- 26 |
Total Estimated Savings: $17,600,000 |
Total FTE: - 158 |
|
Budget FAQs
Would moving to a four-day school week save the district any money?
A four-day school week is a significant shift for our community and staff. It would be something that would require input and conversation with the communities we serve and time to plan and adjust. Generally speaking, when a district shifts to a four-day week the savings comes from reduced hours and workdays for classified staff who work 20% less.
Licensed staff continue to work five days a week. To meet instructional minutes in four days, usually the school day is lengthened and leaves little room for contractual prep time. Prep time and meeting time is all shifted to the one non-student day per week. Second, since the schools remain open five days, there’s no savings on utilities, office, or admin staff. The only savings comes from reducing hours for some student-facing classified staff—paraprofessionals, campus monitors, bus drivers, nutrition. This is a huge burden to place on one group. It would also be an additional burden to the community in the form of childcare, meals, etc.
Additionally, a four-day school week has negative impacts on student achievement, access to school meals, and socio-emotional wellness. Here is a report on four-day weeks from the University of Oregon. We are not considering it at this point for these reasons.
Have you thought about closing a school?
At this point, closing a school would not be a huge financial savings. At the middle school level, no two of our buildings are large enough to absorb the students from a closed school. At the elementary level, closing a smaller school would overcrowd other schools, and the cost savings from closing an elementary school are relatively minimal as staff follow the students. We are not there yet, but might be in future years. We are expecting to receive updated demographic forecasts this spring that will help us to understand enrollment patterns for the next decade.
When a school is closed and students are relocated, staff are needed to support the students at the larger school, so not much is actually saved in closing a school—some utilities and a few support positions such as a principal and office staff.
We estimate less than $500-800K per year would be saved by closing an elementary school, which has to be weighed against the immediate impacts (losing students to private and charter schools, the costs of maintaining a “closed” building that may be needed in the future, increased busing costs, etc) and long-term demographic trends (will the building be needed in the future?, what else can we do to operate more efficiently?).
What is the timeline for notification regarding reductions in force?
We are in the process of determining the total dollar amount we need to reduce for next year's budget. After that, we will finalize the plan for overall reductions. Then, we review school enrollment projections to determine staffing levels. After that, HR meets with REA and OSEA to review seniority and any bumping/ transfers that must occur per the CBAs. Then we are able to inform individual staff members about the potential for reduction in force. We then must wait for the budget to be approved before moving ahead with any staffing changes. Reductions in force take effect on June 30th or the last workday of the school year.
If student-facing staff have been reduced/will be reduced, then it stands to reason that there is less staff for the district administration to support.
Unfortunately, there is very little that could be further scaled down due to staffing reductions from what’s already been reduced from central office administration over the past three years. Payroll, for example, still takes two FTE whether we employ 1500 or 1200 or 900 staff. Most all centralized management positions such as in transportation, operations, IT, C & I, HR, Finance, and Nutrition have been reduced over the past three years.
The current level of staffing is needed to accomplish the work that is required by the CBAs, insurance requirements, and state laws. There are 296 Reports that must be submitted to ODE annually. Every one of these reports requires staff time to prepare and submit. It is not simply hitting a button in the system. This is just one example of the many requirements to run a school district. Other areas of non-student facing support staff such as TOSAs were significantly reduced or completely eliminated three years ago.
Why are we adding electives (Dental, Cosmetology, etc)?
The start-up costs for new CTE programs like Cosmetology, Business, and Dental Assisting are funded through the Intensive Coaching grant, not general fund. This grant will be in its final year in 26-27 and cannot be renewed. The grant is intended to be used to improve district outcomes.
By creating new CTE programs, we hope to retain more students at RHS as well as improve graduation rates. These outcomes will benefit our students as well as our budget in the long-run. We chose to use some of these short-term funds for program development so that when the grant ends, the program infrastructure remains to serve our students for years to come.
As our recent financial audit showed, we do not have reserve funds or “found money” in the budget. We must either increase revenue or reduce expenses, or both. Revenue comes from enrollment which is why developing programs that attract and retain students such as CTE, dual credit, preschools, and dual language immersion are critical to keeping kids and families connected to our schools.
Purchased Services is the largest item in the budget, after salaries and benefits. Have you looked at reducing this area?
The table below shows a breakdown of what is actually in the “purchased services" expenditure category. Unfortunately, most of what falls in this category is required spending either by law or policy. The areas within purchased services that could be considered discretionary are things like the SUN and SRO contracts, Schoology, AVID, Mt Hood Middle College, PSU Senior Inquiry, textbooks, Graduation, etc. Many of these have and will continue to be scrutinized for savings.
Category |
24-25
|
25-26 Estimated |
Description |
|
Charter Schools |
$14,259,834 |
$18,328,523 |
Required by Contract |
|
Special Education Outside Placements |
$4,855,609 |
$5,204,034 |
Required by IEPs |
|
Substitutes (ESS) |
$3,253,719 |
$4,135,252 |
Required by Contract |
|
Utilities |
$3,809,898 |
$3,677,659 |
Electric, Water, Sewer, Garbage, Internet, Security |
|
Custodial Supplies, Equipment, Maintenance & Repair |
$2,903,414 |
$2,090,272 |
Does not include staff |
|
Required Services by Law or Policy |
$813,251 |
$1,114,840 |
Examples include: Financial Audit, Insurance, HR/Financial Services, Legal Services, Elections, etc |
|
Curriculum, Instruction, Technology, Student Programs |
$3,458,828 |
$2,366,651 |
Examples include: SUN, SRO, MHCC, Synergy, Schoology, Student Laptops, AVID, PCC, PSU, Copiers, Core Curriculum, HS Sports, Graduation, etc. |
Total |
$33,354,553 |
$36,917,232 |
|
Budget 101 Q&A Session - February 19, 2026
Here's the video from the Budget 101 session. You can see the questions asked and the answers below.
Questions and Answers:
What percentage of our payroll goes to PERS?
-
PERS is about 26% of salary costs, which is the cost to pay our PERS bond (12%) and to pay the PERS employer contribution (14%)
- A PERS obligation bond is a way to borrow money that has to be paid back with interest
- The district invests bond receipts and the earned interest is used to offset PERS costs
-
Our rates include a reduction for the PERS Bond savings that are applied to “buy down” our rate, as well as a state-wide reduction of 1.68% for just this biennium:
- Tier 1 / Tier 2 increased by 10.27% from 8.43% to 17.02%
- OPSRP increased by 9.93% from 5.59% to 13.84%
- PERS rates and explanations for the changes are on the PERS Website here
- PERS rates are set each biennium in odd years
There was a recent decision to stop having building subs - how much money were we able to save from that? And where can I find that in the budget?
It is unclear if discontinuing building based substitutes will be a cost savings. The amount saved depends on the number of substitutes that are needed to be called during the school year. Building based substitutes were not district employees, and their use did not replace an ESS substitute. It was simply a way to make sure schools had a ready substitute on hand who knew the school and students. When use of the building based substitutes dropped below 90% their use was discontinued.
Is RSD pursuing the State Summer School Grant? If so, is it for K-5 or K-8?
Yes. ODE just released the competitive grant application. Submissions are due by March 20. We likely won’t know the amount of the award until sometime in April. We are applying for K-12.
Is there an easy way to tell what categories items belong under in the budget? Where can I find a description of the functions and objects (what they mean and what is included in them)?
Budget categories are determined by ODE in the Program Budgeting and Accounting Manual (PBAM).
The budget and expenditures are grouped by three elements:
-
Fund
- 100 General Fund: Unrestricted costs are primarily budgeted in the General Fund, along with essential operating expenses
- 200 Grant/Special Revenue Funds: Generally supplement (not replace) the general fund; these are often restricted by the funder to specific purposes
- 300 Debt Funds: Restricted to managing our bond repayment
- 400 Capital Funds: are used to manage bond-funded projects and Construction Excise Tax projects; both are restricted to specific uses related to capital construction efforts
-
Function
- 1000 Instruction Services
- 2000 Support Services
- 3000 Community Services
- 4000 Facilities Acquisition and Construction
-
Object
- 100 - Salaries, stipends, additional hours, taxable compensation
- 200 - Taxes and benefits
- 300 - Services (charter school payments, utilities, property services and repairs, contractors, substitutes, etc)
- 400 - Supplies and equipment
- 500 - Property, buildings, technology, or equipment purchases exceeding $5,000 and lasting longer than one year
- 600 - Dues, fees, taxes, principal and interest payments
On the purple assumptions sheet, the “all other sources” resources category goes from an estimated $7.7m this year to $4.6m next year. Why is that expected to go down by $3m?
All Other Sources is the sum of General Fund revenue other than the State School Fund Formula revenue.
- Local sources - we believe we will have a reduction due to interest earning. As we spend down available cash balances we also reduce interest earning
- Intermediate sources - this is primarily the pass through funds we receive from Multnomah ESD, or what is called “transit” funds. Transit funds are the balance of funds available after we pay for special education services (outplacements) and regionally-shared technology and infrastructure. We had accrued a transit balance and pulled that as one time funds for this year ($3 million); $500,000 to $1million is typical.
- State Sources - this is our reimbursement for high cost disability expense, and the amount has been reduced each year due to the growing need across the state. We do not know what portion of our actual costs will be reimbursed until we actually receive the payment. The reduction reflects the overall trend in the last five years.
- Federal sources - this is the partial reimbursement we receive for our JROTC program, and in applicable years, FEMA disaster funds.
Does the grant money show up in the general fund?
No. General fund is fund 100. All grants are in Fund 200.
Why are you showing a 5% increase for health insurance but it’s capped at 4.5% by OEBB?
OEBB offers many plans across the state. They have a policy to cap average policy increases to 4.5% across all of the plans. The district offers only a selection of those plans; our specific selection within those plans may be more or less than the 4.5% average (e.g. Keizer Plan 1 could be a 10% increase, but Moda Plan 3 is a 2% increase - an average of 6%)
Schools are moving toward offering dual language programs. How much is this expense? Do we have a plan to offset?
Dual language programs have minimal additional startup expenses related to additional curriculum materials. Those costs have been covered by the Intensive Coaching grant. When new materials are purchased, materials for DLI will be part of the purchase and not additional. DLI classrooms are staffed as part of the school staffing plan, not with additional FTE.
Budget Meeting Information
April 2: Budget Committee Work Session / Training | Presentation
April 30: Budget Committee Meeting 1 (6:00p)
May 14: Budget Committee Meeting 2 (6:00p)
May 21: (if needed): Budget Committee Meeting 3 (6:00p)
Budget Committee Meetings will be held at:
Reynolds Edgefield Campus
2408 SW Halsey, Building I
Troutdale, OR 97060)
Meetings can also be viewed live on zoom here
Spoken Public Comment will be available at the May 14, 2026 meeting. A sign-up sheet will be available at the meeting location and must be filled out prior to that start of the meeting.
Written Public Comment can be submitted here at anytime.
Budget Committee
According to Policy DBEA, "The district budget committee will consist of the seven members of the Board and seven electors appointed by the Board as required by law. The term of the appointed members of a budget committee in a district that prepares an annual budget, will each be three years, with appointments made so that, as nearly as practicable, the terms of one-third of the members end each year. At least one member of the budget committee must be a member of the district’s educational equity advisory committee. The Board will establish appropriate timelines and procedures for the appointment of budget committee members."
Budget Committee Members
Position 1: Aaron Muñoz (board member, term ends 6/30/29)
Position 2: Joyce Rosenau (board member, term ends 6/30/29)
Position 3: Michael Reyes (board member, term ends 6/30/29)
Position 4: Cayle Tern (board member, term ends 6/30/29)
Position 5: Patty Carrera (board member, term ends 6/30/27)
Position 6: Ana Gonzalez Muñoz (board member, term ends 6/30/27)
Position 7: Francisco Ibarra (board member, term ends 6/30/27)
Position 8: Vacant (community member, term ends 6/30/26)
Position 9: William Ohle (community member, term ends 6/30/26)
Position 10: Vacant (community member, term ends 6/30/26)
Position 11: Victoria Rizzo (community member, term ends 6/30/27)
Position 12: Catherine Nicewood (community member, term ends 6/30/27)
Position 13: Kim Jacobs (community member, term ends 6/30/28)
Position 14: Margaret Breithaupt (community member, term ends 6/30/28)
Supporting Documents
Budget Calendar for 26-27 (97 KB) 