ROYAL CITY — Royal School District officials are projecting lower enrollment for the 2024-25 school year.  

The budget approved by the Royal School Board projects enrollment at the equivalent of 1,611 students, about 14 students below the 2023-24 budget and 22 students below actual average enrollment for the last school year. District superintendent Roger Trail said smaller enrollments may be the wave of the future. 

“We believe our declining enrollment is mostly related to a declining birthrate,” Trail said. “Our business manager did some research on that and was able to see a pretty good correlation there. At this point it’s actually our lower grade levels that have been affected, but it will gradually work its way through the system.” 

For 2024-25 the district’s general fund was budgeted at $30.7 million. The general fund pays a lot of school expenses, including most salaries, supplies and maintenance. The capital projects fund was budgeted at about $1.04 million, which will be about $188,000 more than anticipated revenue. The capital projects fund pays for new construction and improvements to existing buildings. 

The debt service fund pays back bonds issued for previous capital projects. The debt service budget projection is $1.63 million. The Associated Student Body fund is budgeted at $365,175 and is raised by the students for student activities. 

The transportation vehicle fund can only be used to buy or repair buses or other vehicles for student transportation. It’s budgeted at $450,00; that’s about $280,000 less than anticipated revenue.  

The district’s ending fund balance — what's left over at the end of the school year after everything is paid for, essentially its savings account — is projected at $2.1 million, about the same as the 2023-24 school year. That’s lower than district officials would like, Trail said. 

“We’d like to be at $3 million,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to shoot for, is to build it back. There are a lot of different strategies you can use.”  

District officials are making changes this year to take declining enrollment into account. 

“To accommodate that we’ve absorbed four teaching positions,” Trail said. “Fortunately, we had enough people retire or move on that we could absorb them without having to do a (reduction in force). We moved around a couple of classified positions so we could take advantage of grant funding. We also scrutinized all our contracts and other expenses to see where we could have some cost savings.” 

Trail estimated the district’s cost-cutting measures saved about $1.2 million. 

“But we’re monitoring it monthly,” Trail said. 

Most districts in the Columbia Basin are experiencing enrollment declines, and while Royal’s is smaller than some other districts, it’s still a decline, which is and will continue to be a challenge, he said.