MOSES LAKE — With around 6 percent fewer students expected to enroll with Moses Lake School District this school year, the district faces the prospect of having approximately $5 million less to work with in its upcoming budget, Superintendent Josh Meek said in a Wednesday interview.

Though the district anticipated a budget impact amid the coronavirus pandemic and had looked for ways to reduce costs ahead of the school year, Meek said that layoffs are likely.

“We were able to get ahead of that a little bit by not hiring some positions, leaving some vacancies open, doing creative things to avoid pressure, but it’s going to have to involve some reductions in staff,” Meek said.

It’s still too early to say what positions or how many will be cut, Meek added, as the district works to balance additional responsibilities, including screening students as they come into classrooms and managing various learning models, with the need to reduce costs.

Around 500 fewer students than projected are enrolled for the upcoming school year, Meek said. Approximately 200 of them were previously enrolled students who indicated they didn’t plan to return to the district and were enrolled in an another form of schooling, such as home or private school.

In addition, fewer students are coming into kindergarten this year, with many parents likely choosing to wait another year before their children enroll, Meek added. However, while it depends on many factors, Meek said he believed most of the departing students would re-enroll with MLSD once the pandemic ended.

Many programs and extracurricular activities, including sports, are going to be put on hold, but there hasn’t been much discussion about cutting those programs altogether to help balance the budget, Meek said. In fact, while some activities such as band or drama may not be possible in person, some staffers are looking at ways to provide some modified version of those activities that complies with health protocols, he added.

“We have lots of different groups trying to get creative to keep activities going,” Meek said. “I know one of our band directors is looking at, ‘so I can’t meet face to face, what is a way to keep people connected with music virtually?’ There’s a lot of creativity going on behind the scenes.”

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.