ROYAL CITY — The Royal School District is experiencing the same declining enrollment trends that are affecting other local school districts. Royal Superintendent Roger Trail said so far, the district has been able to absorb the resulting staff cuts. 

“One thing that has helped us is that our enrollment decline has been fairly gradual. That has allowed us to reduce staffing through attrition rather than through reductions in force,” Trail wrote in answer to questions from the Columbia Basin Herald. “We’ve been doing that over the past several years, and this year we were able to absorb two positions in that manner. My hope is that if enrollment continues to decline, it remains gradual enough that we can continue using attrition to adjust staffing and avoid RIFs wherever possible.” 

The district’s 2026-27 budget projects a general fund of about $32.6 million. The general fund pays for most school operations, including salaries, supplies and most maintenance. The debt service fund, which pays off outstanding bonds issued for construction projects, is budgeted at about $1.6 million. The capital projects fund, which pays for those construction projects, was projected at about $408,000. The transportation vehicle fund pays for buses; it’s projected at about $673,000. The Associated Student Body fund is money generated by the students and was budgeted at $384,650. 

Royal is projected to finish the 2026-27 school year with about $2.35 million in reserves. That’s unchanged from the reserve balance at the end of the 2025-26 school year. The reserve balance dropped from $2.7 million in 2024-25 to $2.35 million in 2025-26.  

In Washington, school budgets are based on projected student enrollment for the first half of the school year. State funding is adjusted in January to reflect actual enrollment. 

For 2026-27, Royal is projecting the equivalent of 1,555 students. That’s a drop of 40 students from the 2025-26 budget. Actual enrollment in 2025-26 was the equivalent of about 1,616 students. 

“Overall, our approach has been to plan conservatively, adjust gradually where we can and try to protect programs and services for students while maintaining long-term financial stability,” Trail said. 

In the budget presentation given to the Royal School Board, Business Manager Lory Benavidez told board members that there’s some uncertainty around federal funding. State funding also is subject to change, she said.  

Some districts, Royal included, are eligible for “levy assistance” from the state. That’s money given to relatively property-poor districts that pass a local levy. That’s being cut by about $27 million statewide, Benavidez said. 

The money paid to K-12 school districts that have students in the Running Start program is being reduced as well. Running Start allows qualifying high school juniors and seniors to receive high school credits for college classes.  

Royal has a transitional kindergarten program for children who’ve finished kindergarten but need some extra help getting ready for first grade. Funding for the TK program was reduced by about 25%, she said. 

Trail said that’s an example of the funding challenge. 

“Not every reduction in state funding comes with a corresponding reduction in the services we need to provide. This year we expect to serve approximately 45 (transitional kindergarten) students, while state funding will cover only about 38,” Trail said. “We believe strongly in the importance of early childhood education, so the district is making up that difference. We think that is the right thing to do, but it obviously places additional pressure on the budget.” 

The formula used to pay school districts back for buses they buy was changed, extending the payback period. That means the payment each year is lower. 

“Changes in the state’s depreciation schedule affect the funding we receive for buses, but they don’t change the fact we still need to purchase and replace buses and transport students to and from school. Particularly in a rural district like ours, transportation isn’t something we can simply scale back in proportion to a funding reduction,” he said.