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Schools

State Senate Budget Paints Bleak Picture for Renton School District

The State Senate budget, released last week, cuts the Renton School District budget by $3.2 million, as opposed to the $1 million budget reduction proposed by the House.

The Renton School District is getting closer to making some tough decisions now that the state Senate budget proposals have been released and propose even deeper cuts to the K-12 system.

Last week, the state Senate released its budget, and it is even worse news than the House budget. The Senate budget cuts Renton’s budget by $3.2 million as opposed to the $1 million cut proposed by the House.

In the district’s press release, Superintendent Mary Alice Heuschel said, “The Senate budget represents the worst possible scenario of cuts for our district.”  Heuschel said it will cause the district to make some difficult choices about cutting extra-curricular activities, such as athletics, music, and art. The district may also face cutting transportation and programs like Discovery, for gifted students.

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The Senate budget also proposes 3-percent cuts to teacher and staff salaries, rather than freeze salaries as proposed by Governor Gregoire and the House. If salaries are not cut, the Senate budget makes the recommendation to cut time in the school year, or to cut programs.

Both the House and the Senate budget propose to increase class size to in grades K-4, to eliminate the lower class size initiative known as I-728, and to eliminate the teacher cost of living increase (I-732).

Find out what's happening in Rentonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The House and the Senate need to debate the differences to the two proposed budgets, and come to an agreement before the session finishes on April 24.

The public can voice their opinion by contacting your legislators. If you don’t know the name of your legislator, you can find it here.

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