New Anacortes Schools Superintendent Dr Carl Bruner was sworn into office Thursday night and moments later the Board approved a $51-million budget for the coming year.
There were no surprises in the budget, but School District Chief Financial Officer Brian Fraser didn’t paint a rosy picture for the years ahead, saying the heavy lifting in cutting spending has been done. But, he said, that’s not to say the work has been done in the face of higher costs.
The school district gets much of its income from the state government, a lesser amount in local taxes as well as some limited federal funding. Seventy-three percent of income is from the state government.
On the expenses side, the biggest chunk of spending is for salaries and benefits. In fact, just over 86 percent of spending is for staff.
After staff cuts over the past few years, the teacher-to-student ratio has changed very little. In fact, in this 2025-2026 year, student teacher ratio will be 14.37. In 2023-2024 school year, the ratio was 14.60.
The school district has long had a policy of keeping four percent of funds in reserve. Over the years, that year-end fund balance has dropped to 1.47% for the 2025-2026 school year, up slightly from 2022-2023, when the balance was 1.31%. In the 2020-2021 school year, the year-end balance was 5 percent.