Wednesday,  February 12 , 2025

Linkedin Pinterest
News / Clark County News

Washougal School Board member urges transparency, says district leaders kept mum on financial warning

The district knew about OSPI’s financial warning in March but the board wasn’t informed until October

By Doug Flanagan, Camas-Washougal Post-Record
Published: December 14, 2024, 6:09am

A Washougal school board member is calling for more transparency from district leaders, whom he claims failed to notify the board in a timely manner about a financial warning the district received from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Board member Jim Cooper said during a Nov. 26 meeting that district administrators knew about the warning in February but didn’t tell the board until October.

“It sounds like everyone except the board knew about it. The unions knew about it. We just weren’t told about it,” Cooper said. “It’s inexplicable and inexcusable to me that the board was not told about the financial warning. … I have not pointed fingers (at) anybody but I think it’s critical that the board is in the loop when we get formal warnings from the state OSPI.”

The district received the financial warning from OSPI’s School District Financial Health Indicators Model, which OSPI also posted to its website in February. The warning indicates a district is facing potential difficulties based on financial reporting, in Washougal’s case based on the 2022-23 school year.

Interim Superintendent Aaron Hansen informed the board about the warning at its Oct. 22 meeting.

Communication Director Les Brown said staff actually became aware that the district was on the warning list in March.

“It does not appear that OSPI sends any information to a district when they publish the list,” Brown said. “We provided information to the community, via our website, about the financial warning, using the term ‘watch list’ as part of the round-two budget reductions information, which was posted on the website on May 10.”

OSPI’s system uses four weighted conditions — fund balance to revenue ratio, expenditures to revenue ratio, days of cash on hand and a four-year budget summary plan.

The system assigns point values — 0 to 4 — to districts in each of the four categories. Each district’s total score is the sum of each indicator’s score multiplied by the weighting factor. The combined score determines the district’s financial health category.

Districts with scores of 1.75 and lower receive a financial warning. Nineteen of the 265 school districts in Washington received a warning for the 2022-23 school year. Washougal scored 1.55. Forty-three districts, including Mount Pleasant, received a perfect 4.0 score. The only other district in Clark County to score less than 2.0 is Vancouver with a 1.90.

“The first is a warning — we got that,” Cooper said during the Nov. 26 meeting. After the warning, if a district enters the second phase it will lose local control over finances. If solutions cannot be found, a district could be disbanded.

“After hearing about what’s happened in other districts around the state that go down into that ‘red zone,’ that’s not an experience any of us really want to participate in,” said Cooper, who attended the Washington State School Directors Association’s annual conference in November in Spokane. “I heard that next year, 10 percent of the school districts in the state, 30 districts, will be in binding conditions. That’s a big number. I just don’t want to be on that list.”

Cooper called for district leaders to put together a financial improvement plan, including increasing its minimum fund balance — currently 6 percent — to at least 8 percent.

Cooper also asked district leaders to provide the board with monthly budget reports.

District leaders began providing updates during budget presentations at school board meetings during the 2023-24 school year, Brown said.

Cooper said the board did not receive updates in 14 of 36 months between June 2019 and June 2023.

Brown said district leaders will work to keep the board informed about important information.

“This includes sending the board information prior to it being shared with the community,” he said. “In response to Jim’s request for more frequent updates and to receive information in a format that is easier to understand, district leadership will work on providing a concise monthly summary that provides board members with ready access to important information to make sure they’re well informed.”

Loading...