MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake School District voters will be asked to accept or reject a four-year educational programs and operations levy in a special election Feb. 11. If it’s approved, the maximum collectible amount would be $11.21 million in the first year, $12.56 million in the second year, $13.37 million in the third year and $14.24 million in the fourth year.  

If the levy is approved, property owners would pay $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value for the duration of the levy. The owner of property assessed at $300,000 would pay $450 per year. 

District voters rejected a two-year levy EP&O levy proposal earlier this year. That proposal was for $2 per $1,000 of assessed value. The levy rejection led to the discovery of accounting errors that had drained the district’s reserves. The staff members responsible for the errors are no longer with the district, and Superintendent Carol Lewis has explained measures taken to prevent such issues from happening again. They include hiring a new finance manager, school board members being more involved in accounting on a direct level and improved purchasing approval processes within the district. Identifying areas where overspending was occurring has also happened and been addressed. The district is also undergoing a state audit which will identify any other shortcomings that need to be addressed. 

The shortfall led to substantial cuts in personnel and prompted fundraising campaigns to keep school activities going. It also prompted district administrators to reevaluate what MLSD could and couldn’t afford, analysis that has covered almost every school operation. District superintendent Carol Lewis, speaking at a community forum Dec. 5, pointed to a stack of levy information flyers on a table.  

“You will notice that it is printed in black and white. It actually looks really fabulous in color, but we don’t print in color right now in the Moses Lake School District. It costs eight times more to print in color than it does in black and white,” Lewis said.  

Moses Lake School Board member Paul Hill estimated that the levy rejection accounted for about half the district’s funding shortfall for the 2024-25 school year. He estimated the shortfall at about $20 million.  

Changes made 

Lewis said the need for a review of spending revealed procedures needed to change. 

“We were overspending. The school district was overspending, not just last year or the year before, and people didn’t know that,” Lewis said.  

In many cases school programs were being continued from year to year without checking to see if they were still needed, she said. 

“We were on a path to say, ‘What we did last year, we’re going to do it this year.’ That was tanking our fund balance, year after year after year. So we had to pull all of that back. We’re never going to be able to go back to that. We couldn’t afford the things that we were doing,” Lewis said. 

The more or less automatic rollover of programs needed to change, she said.  

“We’re not in a position to do that, and we really shouldn’t be doing that. We need to be thinking, what is our revenue, what are our expenditures, and what can we afford? And we’re doing that,” she added. 

In answer to a question from the audience, Lewis said district officials and board members are working to regain trust. To help with that, district officials are starting a finance oversight committee. 

“That’s taken a little longer than I was hoping, but I’m still hopeful that we can have at least one meeting before the Christmas break, and if not, right after,” Lewis said. “That’s supposed to be made up of local folks who are accountants and things like that. They will be able to (review) what we’ve got and then report back to the board and the public in general (and say), ‘We’re outside of the school district. We’re looking at what you’ve got, and we’re okay with it.’ Or they’re not, and that would be a different conversation.” 

As of early December, MLSD had about $12 million in its Grant County Treasurer’s account, Lewis said. That balance increases and decreases as the district receives money and pays its bills. What’s left at the end of the school year is the district’s reserves, and the target for reserves set by the school board is 12.5%, which Lewis estimated would be about $16 to $17 million.  

‘A patch to get us through’ 

District personnel and district patrons responded to the budget shortfall with fundraising drives, volunteering in classrooms, parent organizations paying for things that are normally paid for by the district and staff working in unfamiliar jobs. But, Lewis said, the district can’t expect either staff or district patrons to keep doing that long term.  She compared it to bandaging a wound. 

“We have an incredibly generous community and really amazing staff, and people have stepped in all kinds of ways so that kids didn’t suffer through all of this. So those band-aids have come on. But as we know, with any kind of bandage, it’s going to come off eventually,” Lewis said. “And when those come off, we can either be healed and okay and able to move forward – or not, and we’re really going to suffer if we’re not,” 

Fundraising has sustained extracurricular programs, with the help of volunteer support, coaches and advisors working for one dollar a year and in some cases volunteering. Administrators and teachers are cleaning floors and taking out trash, Lewis said.  

“But that’s a patch to get us through,” she said, 

The budget shortfall has resulted in cutbacks; Lewis cited the end of a district program to make computers available to all students fifth grade and older.  

Board member Kirryn Jensen said she was concerned about the impact on school security. Levy dollars help pay for School Resource Officers which help secure the district’s campuses.  

Lewis said the MLSD retained its preschool program, which is not part of K-12 funding, but the funding that is available is inadequate.  

“I think the community has adopted this idea that levies are optional. Our state does not see it that way. A levy is really required to have the kind of education people expect,” Lewis said. “So, can a school district function if it has to without (a levy)? Yeah, because we don’t have a choice, and we would figure it out. But really, the expectation from the way our state funding works is that a levy will be in place.” 

Correction: Superintendent Lewis's last name has been corrected in the first reference above.

    Moses Lake High School students perform in the MLHS production of “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical” in November. Drama is among the activities funded through the district’s educational programs and operations levy.
  

    Moses Lake players celebrate after a fumble return during the 2024 season. Coaches working for $1 and volunteers have helped keep Moses Lake School District extracurricular activities afloat for the 2024-25 school year.
  

    Moses Lake School District superintendent Carol Lewis explains district financing during a Dec. 5 during a question-and-answer forum.