Quilcene School District Superintendent Wally Lis barely reacted when school board member Viviann Kuehl proposed Dec. 14 that his contract not be automatically renewed.

“With the budgetary issues we’re already dealing with, I think we need to maintain some flexibility for the future,” said Kuehl, whose motion was approved unanimously by the five-member board.

Kuehl pointed out that Lis’ contract would automatically roll over for one year without such a motion, and reiterated the need to keep the district’s options open. She suggested Quilcene could choose to return to a part-time superintendent.

“Of course, we’d also still have the option to retain you, Wally, if we so chose,” Kuehl told Lis.

If nothing else changes, the superintendent’s contract ends after the 2017-2018 school year.

On Thursday, Lis told The Leader the board’s decision came as no surprise, either to himself or any of the school district’s employees. He recalled that Quilcene had relied upon various types of part-time superintendents starting in 2003-2004.

“Some of them were half-time, otherwise retired or shared with another district,” Lis said. “For four years, Quilcene shared me with Brinnon. It was only last year, as we dealt with a number of retirements, that we needed people to make the transition, and I became full-time.”

Lis was hired in 2011 as the joint Brinnon/Quilcene superintendent.

Early in 2015, Quilcene’s school board learned that Cindy Pollard, the district’s business manager and a 30-year employee, would retire in January 2016. The board decided that Lis should be a full-time superintendent to help shepherd the transition to a new business manager. In April 2015, Lis resigned his duties for Brinnon. That July, he became a full-time superintendent in Quilcene. His last signed contract in Quilcene was for $111,000, plus benefits.

In early 2015, Lis promoted district employee Darlene Apeland into the job of director of business and finance, and she worked with Pollard a short time. Lis also changed the roles of four other administrative staff members.

In the 2015 election cycle, one school board incumbent did not seek re-election, and another was defeated. A third vacancy was filled by appointment, so the board in 2016 took on a new look.

In April 2016, Lis suffered an accidental fall at home, and as a result, missed about three months of office time. One of the first major projects upon his return was dealing with the elementary school roof, which had been identified as a major facility issue. Contractor bids were received, and all were more than an architect’s preliminary estimate. Instead, the board authorized a basic roof replacement.

In June, the board approved a budget extension, as requested by Lis, to cover until a new budget was approved in July.

After the board passed a 2016-2017 budget in July, Lis in August talked at a school board meeting about district financial issues that may require teacher and staff cuts. Also, an English and art teacher resigned, and Lis said that, due to budget concerns, the position would not be filled.

PART-TIME

Lis told The Leader that the board’s option to return to a part-time superintendent has been on the table for at least 10 months because of concerns about how much the state Legislature would meet the requirements of the state Supreme Court’s McCleary school funding decision.

“It sounds like the Legislature won’t adjourn until June [2017], but all of our decisions about staffing have to be made before June,” Lis said. “It’s a challenge for the district to meet its legal requirements in that case.”

Lis deemed the board’s decision legally necessary, to “cover their bases,” and insisted that he doesn’t question their intent.

“It’s not just us, but all the school districts in the state who have reason to feel nervous because of this timeline,” Lis said.

BUDGET REVIEW

For a number of years, Steve McIntire of Port Angeles, former finance director for the Port Townsend School District, consulted with Pollard on budget issues, through his duties with Educational Services District 114. Per state law, McIntire already reviews school districts’ budgets prior to their approval by their respective boards, but he is also available to help districts deliver and interpret financial information, at no cost to them.

“I’ve known Cindy [Pollard] for years, even before I started this job six and a half years ago,” McIntire said. “She’s very experienced, knowledgable and competent. With Darlene [Apeland], I’ve provided a bit more of a mentorship role, as I’ve done for folks in other districts during their first year or two on the job.”

In response to Lis’ comment about the possible need to cut teaching staff after the budget had been approved, the school board requested more details, and Lis asked McIntire to make a presentation at the Dec. 14 meeting.

McIntire summed up Quilcene’s financial state as “not a bad deal, but not a good pattern,” since the district is ahead of its projected enrollment numbers, but that only mitigates, rather than eliminates, the losses to its fund balance.

Quilcene was originally looking at a fund balance reduction of $583,000, from $1.2 million to $617,000 for the 2016-2017 school year. Thanks to student enrollment numbers, McIntire instead projected a reduction of $289,000, from $1.3 million to $988,000, which is far less, but still not tolerable in the long run.

“You cannot continue to be upside down by that amount of money on a year-to-year basis,” McIntire said.

McIntire noted that 64 percent of Quilcene’s budget goes toward staff, while 36 percent goes toward non-employee-related costs (NERC). He added that this ratio is typically 80-to-20 in staff-to-NERC for other districts, but pointed out the relative intractability of the latter category of expenses.

“You still have to pay for transportation and food services,” McIntire said. “You can’t just choose not to run half your buses, and it’s been shown to be a bad idea to eliminate the food program. NERC includes utilities and other contracted services that districts can’t provide for themselves.”

Although districts have trimmed such expenses on a temporary basis, McIntire warned that this is only a short-term fix.

“Past a certain point, you start getting creative with your staffing, with measures like multiage classrooms,” McIntire said. “The state has defined ‘basic education,’ so you can’t eliminate math, science or English, but there are extracurriculars that are out on the periphery, and certain electives that can be eliminated. Music and art are commonly cut in other districts.”

McIntire declined to offer specific advice on what sorts of staff or NERC cuts Quilcene could make, “since I don’t know the district well enough,” but he summed up Quilcene’s choices as either trying to get back in the black or “gaining ground” on its deficit spending.

“In certain years, you’re going to lose ground,” McIntire said. “This district has said that it wants to maintain a 10 percent reserve fund. The board can’t be unconcerned, but it’s not always going to put out a budget that it likes, because the bottom line is, by Aug. 1, it has to approve something.”