2026 – 2027 School Year Budget Parameters

Each year brings a different context to budgeting. The following are parameters supported by the School Board to guide the district in developing the 2026 – 2027 school year’s budget, including how to approach budget reductions.

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Prioritize Each & Every Student

• Prioritize students and their educational experience; start with cuts furthest from the classroom.
• Protect the district’s strategic priorities, moving funds from other areas as needed.
• Maintain equitable support, services, and opportunities to continue to close opportunity gaps and deliver on our Equity and Accountability commitments.
• Prioritize maintaining student programs that create student joy, engagement, belonging, and provide mental health support.

Reduce Expenditures

• Find ways to reduce the budget by $20 million through efficiencies and trimming, versus elimination of programs or services.
• Maintain consistent and predictable operations and services, while improving efficiency.
• Evaluate and incorporate student, family, and staff feedback to the extent possible.
• Examine programs and services such as special education and transportation. Looking at all the layers of spending, is our investment impactful? Effective? Does it improve services and outcomes to students? Can we improve efficiency? Conduct a performance audit and look at “return on investments” (qualitative and quantitative).

Increase Revenue

• Advocate for additional state funding for Special Education; Materials, Supplies and Operating Costs; and Transportation consistent with the Board approved 2025 Legislative Priorities during the 2025 legislative session.
• Build on the educational excellence of BSD to retain and attract students.
• Partner with community partners, including the Bellevue Schools Foundation and the City of Bellevue, to increase revenue through donations and grants.
• Pursue additional funding opportunities locally as well as creative opportunities for cost-sharing, cost-cutting, increased efficiencies, and revenue generation.
• Increase revenue by maximizing revenue generation from BSD properties and assets while balancing long-term district needs and planning.
• Continue to grow safety net to maximize special education reimbursements.
• Maximize other resources such as CTE.

Plan for the Long-Term

• Stabilize our long-term financial pictures.
• Allocate resources to successfully implement and support our strategic plan, including investing in new and innovative opportunities, using an intentional, multi-year, budget-responsible approach to program investments; pause elements of the strategic plan that can be implemented in future years when finances are stable.
• Develop a plan to address district structural issues that result in budget deficits.
• Develop a restoration plan built on community priorities.
• Improve financial communications to create a foundation of community trust and district transparency.
• Ensure 30 days of cash on hand.
• Set a specific annual goal for expenditure reductions per our binding conditions. For example, we will create a budget with $2M in revenue over expenditures until we restore our fund balance.
• Set a target for general fund reserve for 2026-27 in partnership with OSPI (per binding conditions).
• Acknowledge and address structural funding/spending issues such as special education.

 

Board Priorities if Resources Exist in 2026-27:

• Mental health and behavioral supports (ex. PBIS, assistant principals)
• Annual Plan and Strategic Plan Goals (ex. Math, early literacy)
• Class Size and Caseload