SEATTLE — The Seattle School Board will decide whether to approve a $1.6 billion budget for the upcoming school year. The vote is scheduled for Wednesday night.
Seattle Public Schools is already planning for a tighter budget, and enrollment is a big reason why.
The funding the district receives from the state is tied to enrollment, so fewer students mean less money.
Seattle Public Schools put out a warning on its website about the need to make adjustments, noting that it had budgeted for more than 52,000 students last school year, but ended up with about 1,900 fewer students than expected. The difference resulted in the district receiving $28 million less in revenue, the district wrote.
Enrollment continues to drop with 48,748 students expected in the 2022-23 school year.
Enrollment was discussed during the school board’s June 22 meeting.
"I believe it's not that there are kindergarteners out there that aren't enrolling. It's that that city is becoming so unaffordable for families that we don't have new young children, new young families and new children coming into this system because people are moving,” said school board member Liza Rankin during the meeting.