MOSES LAKE, Wash. — As the Moses Lake School District (MLSD) continues to deal with the impact of both a budget shortfall and a bus driver shortage, the district hosted the first of four community meetings to try to build back trust.
The meeting took place Tuesday night at Sage Point Elementary in Moses Lake.
“Trust in our community at large has been broken,” said interim district superintendent Carol Lewis. Now MLSD hopes to get some trust back by doing what they do best – teach. Lewis led the presentation for a small audience of over a dozen people.
"The public came to learn a little bit about how school districts are financed and then learn what went wrong in Moses Lake School District with our finances,” Lewis said.
The issues started with a double levy failure last school year. Then when MLSD administrators began looking into the district’s finances, they found an estimated $12 million in accounting errors. According to Lewis, MLSD “suffered a $20 million loss of revenue with all of that combined.”
The shortfall led to the layoff of more than 200 district workers.
But Lewis said the one group not touched in the layoffs were the bus drivers since the transportation department is funded separately.
The topic came up during the meeting after the MLSD announced on Friday the possibility of temporarily canceling bus routes.
Lewis said it’s logical for people to think the budget shortfall and the bus driver shortage are related.
“But the reality is we have enough money to pay the drivers and to fuel the buses and run all of those routes,” said Lewis. “We don't have enough substitute bus drivers.”
According to MLSD spokesperson Claren McLaughlin, canceling bus routes is a “last resort.” She also added the district could use about eight more substitute bus drivers.
MLSD spent the last several months climbing their way out of the financial hole. Lewis estimates it'll take about four years for the district to get back to where it needs to be.
For now, they'll start by building trust through these meetings.
“I hope people will have a clear understanding of the truth about what happened and I hope that they'll be able to answer their questions so that they can feel comfortable in regaining a little bit of trust with the school district,” she said.
The next three community meetings will be:
- Oct. 7 at Endeavor Middle School, 6527 Patton Blvd. NE – 6 p.m.
- Oct. 14 at Vanguard Academy, 740 E Yonezawa Blvd. – 6 p.m.
- Oct. 22 at Frontier Middle School, 517 W 3rd Ave. – 6 p.m.