Despite WA cuts, Longview schools expect end fund balance rise

Despite decreases in state funding, Longview School District expects to slightly increase its end fund balance in the 2026-2027 school year, and to end the year without a spending deficit.

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The Longview School Board is scheduled to view a draft budget at its June 22 meeting. A public budget hearing is scheduled for Aug. 10, and the board is scheduled to adopt a final budget Aug. 24.

Patti Bowen, the district's executive director of business services, presented a budget development update at the April 13 school board meeting that covered recent legislative changes around school funding.

State funding cuts

Due to a new state cap on Transition to Kindergarten enrollment, Longview expects to lose 26 slots in its program. The decrease is equal to about two classrooms, Bowen said.

Transition to Kindergarten is a free state-funded preschool program aimed at students who need extra preparation to start kindergarten but may not have access to other forms of preschool. The state Legislature voted in 2025 to implement a new cap on enrollment as part of a larger series of budget cuts.

Longview's Transition to Kindergarten program is called Kinder Bridge.

The Legislature also voted in its 2026 session to lower a planned increase to local effort assistance funding, which supplements levy funding in property-poor school districts. Schools were originally set to receive an increase of $250 per pupil, but will now receive a $150 increase instead.

The change amounts to a loss of about $450,000 in Longview, Bowen said.

Decreased poverty funding

Robert Gray Elementary School and Mark Morris High School are expected to see a decrease in state Learning Assistance Program High Poverty funding, which is assigned based on the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch under federal poverty guidelines.

The change is not because there are fewer students in need at those schools, Bowen said. Instead, it's because the federal guidelines have not kept up with changes to Washington's minimum wage.

To qualify for reduced-price meals in the 2026-2027 school year, families must have an income of no more than 185% of the federal poverty level, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines. For a family of four, that means making no more than $61,050 per year.

Washington's minimum wage increased to $17.13 per hour in 2026, so a minimum-wage employee working full time would earn about $35,600 per year. If both parents in a four-person household worked full time and earned minimum wage, their household income would be about $71,300 per year, meaning they would not qualify for reduced lunch.

Between the two schools, the estimated funding loss is about $432,000, Bowen said.

Robert Gray and Mark Morris are the two most recent Longview schools to qualify for high poverty funding. At least 50% of students at a school need to qualify for free or reduced lunch to earn the funding, and both schools have fallen just under that threshold, Bowen said.

According to the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 48% of Mark Morris students and 45% of Robert Gray students were considered low income in the 2025-2026 school year.

In the district as a whole, 62% of students were low income.

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