MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake School Board unanimously approved a balanced budget for the 2025–26 school year during its regular meeting Thursday evening. The $144.6 million budget matches projected revenues with expenditures.  

“We tried to do a budget that was revenues equal expenditures, and we were successful at that,” MLSD Business Manager Ruby Perez said. 

Superintendent Carol Lewis said she looks forward to the upcoming school year.  

“I feel really good, and I feel very confident that we are going to be able to create programs for kids with the money that we have to spend. It’s a night and day difference between last year at this time,” Lewis said.  

Levy allocations 

The Moses Lake School District passed a $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value Educational Programs and Operations levy in the spring of 2025, which means it will receive around $5.9 million in funds in April 2026. The first semester of the school year from August to December will receive no levy funding. Funds received in 2026 are going toward academic support, athletics and activities, safety, security, health, maintenance, custodial, materials, supplies and tech.  

The district had budgeted in four of those categories higher than levy materials distributed by the district had stated. Academic support was promised up to $2 million but budgeted for $2.5 million. Athletics and activities were promised up to $1.4 million but it was budgeted for $1.5 million. Safety, security and health were promised up to $500,000 but it was budgeted for $880,000. Then materials and supplies were promised up to $750,000 and budgeted for $770,000. 

“Those increases were just based on need, because a lot of this cost more than what we had estimated,” Perez said. “Those four categories had more priority in the district. Athletics and activities were a big priority, and just because the levy information was just a guess on the cost of certain things, it just took priority and ended up being a little bit more money.”  

Two categories were budgeted lower than what was promised to voters including materials and supplies and technology. Materials and supplies were estimated during the levy election to be up to $1 million and were budgeted for $230,000. Technology was estimated at up to $250,000 but budgeted for $58,000. 

However, Perez said students will not be impacted and the district decided to focus on people for this upcoming school year.  

“Those are still higher than last year, so these will be almost double what they were last year,” she said. “We tried to spend a little bit more money on the things we thought the community wanted. I think people care about certain things more and we are trying to listen to our community and do what we said we were going to do.”  

Fund balances 

The budget consists of five funds for the board to approve including the general fund, capital projects fund, debt service fund, Associated Student Body fund and transportation vehicle fund.  

The General Fund holds the majority of the money the district handles outside of special monies. The beginning balance for this account is about $18.9 million. The anticipated revenues for the 2025-26 school year are about $144.6 million, and expenditures are around $144.6 million. The budgeted ending balance is about $18.9 million, the same the district began with.  

The Capital Projects Fund is for purchasing land, buildings or upgrades to buildings. The beginning balance for this school year is about $7.6 million which is broken into four categories including: unassigned monies with about $3,000, bond monies with around $5.1 million, state funds of around $86,000 and other funds of nearly $2.3 million. The district is expecting around $63.5 million in revenues to come into this fund. These come from the sale of bonds which total around $46.3 million, state funds of $8 million and other monies of nearly $9.2 million. The district plans on spending around $61.3 million. The district plans to spend part of the Capital Fund on Vanguard Academy totaling $350,000, Elementary 12 for $46.3 million, remodeling facilities at around $8 million and Groff Elementary for nearly $6.7 million. The ending fund balance is anticipated to be $9.7 million.  

The Debt Fund is used to pay interest bonds. Currently, the district has about $3.4 million in the fund. They anticipate revenues of about $6.7 million from taxes and interest earnings to go into the fund. Expenditures will be around $6.5 million and will go toward matured bonds, coupon interest and fiscal agent fees. The anticipated balance at the end of the school year is around $3.6 million. 

The Associated Student Body Fund is for student extracurricular activities. The fund is managed by the school's student body with oversight by the school board. The student body decides revenues and expenditures. The starting fund balance is around $940,000 with anticipated revenues of about $1.11 million and expenditures of around $1.05 million. The ending fund balance is anticipated to be around $990,000 after revenues and expenditures are accounted for. 

The Transportation Vehicle Fund accounts for the purchase of vehicles or major repairs for the district's fleet. The starting fund balance is around $740,000 with revenues of about $705,000 and about $630,000 in expenditures. The fund is expected to end the year with a balance of about $800,000. 

Revenues 

The revenue report for the current fiscal year for MLSD shows a total of $144.6 million in anticipated revenues. 

Much of the district's funding — about $123 million, or 85.6% of total revenues — comes from state resources. This includes state apportionment revenue which is allocated based on student enrollment and is used for basic education as well as various categorical programs. This category also included Local Effort Assistance money the district gets because it passed a levy.  

Local tax revenues, specifically from voter-approved levy funds, contribute $5.9 million, accounting for 4.1% of total revenues. Around $4.5 million in local receipts will also come in. 

“Local receipts are basically all receipts that come in from student generated fees and sales and stuff like that,” Perez said.  

Federal revenues contribute nearly $10.4 million, representing 7.2% of the district's total revenue. This funding stream mostly supports specific grant programs aimed at enhancing educational opportunities and resources. 

Enrollment 

The district has budgeted for about 8,243 students for the 2025-26 school year.   

“We did about a 1% decrease based on declining enrollment,” Perez said. “The average decline in enrollment right now is about 2% but we felt that given the addition of class offerings, we would potentially see our students come through the door again. Because of that, we decided to do a 1% reduction instead of a 2% reduction.”  

Last year, the district budgeted for around 8,284 students and had an actual enrollment of about 8,424.  

“We like to budget conservatively, just in case we don't have all the students run through the doors, come the first day of school, and that basically helps us to budget conservatively and to estimate revenues conservatively, so that we can then proceed conservatively,” Perez said.  

Lewis has also said the district intended to underestimate enrollment to be fiscally conservative in its budgeting process. 

Expenditures  

MLSD has allocated around $144.6 million in total expenditures for the upcoming school year.  

A total of about $122.1 — 84.4% — of the district's budget is dedicated to teaching, teaching support and benefits.  

“This budget is more reflective of actual expenditures,” Perez said. “So, previous budgets, that wasn't the case, but now we're going through line item by line item, which is what I did this year, to see where invoices were paid from — where certain things were coded, to make sure that they were coded correctly. Because of that, you'll see that purchasing services are a little bit bigger than supplies. Then, of course, we added some capacity for travel and capital outlay, just in case.” 

Around $4.4 million or 3% of the budget goes towards supplies and materials. There is around $17.8 million of 12.4% of the budget goes towards purchased services which includes digital textbooks and other learning programs. Around $130,000 had been budgeted for travel and $200,000 for capital outlay.