Budget Advisory Committee

   A district-led volunteer citizens advisory group designed to inform the public on education funding policies and practices and to solicit participation and feedback in the District’ budgeting process.

• Receive and gather financial and other information from the District for purposed of providing advice and counsel to the Superintendent and financial and business matters.
• Explore and evaluate issues and needs of the District relative to fiscal affairs.
• Utilize community survey data to inform committee work and feedback.
• Understand the systems and processes currently in place to address the fiscal needs of the District.
• Understand both the short-term and long-term financial plans and planning of the District.
• Provide advice to the Superintendent concerning budget and fiscal planning process, transparency with regard to District fiscal matters.

• Community engagement plays an important role in the District’s budget process as we work to balance our budget and develop a strategic plan over the next year to ensure that: we are funding our priorities and our work and decisions are transparent.
• LWSD needs to take steps to bring expenditures in alignment with revenues. The earlier we plan for these changes, the easier it will be to minimize impacts to programs and continue momentum toward a balanced budget.
• Planning ahead for fiscal challenges may be hard in the short-term, but is essential for the long-term health of our district.
• LWSD has been intentionally using budget reserves over the last two years. Reductions of $4.8 million or 0.9% were made for the 2023-24 school year. We will need to continue to balance our budget to align funding received with expenditures over the next two years.
• LWSD is in a better position than many other districts due to our long-range financial planning and our smaller enrollment declines.
• The combination of factors listed below has resulted in budget issues for many districts in our state:
  • Declining enrollment
  • Rising costs (inflation)
  • Continued lack of "full funding" from the state
  • Limited local levy capacity (due to enrollment loss)

Committee roster