Tacoma Public Schools is considering cutting hundreds of teachers and support staff in order to make up for a $30 million projected shortfall. This is the third straight year of funding issues for the district, which says insufficient state funding is covering fewer of its rising costs in transportation, maintenance, insurance, and salaries.
TPS says 115 contracts for provisional certified teachers were paused for the 2025-26 school year, with 105 not renewed. 118 educational support staff were part of program cuts, though 58 may be brought back under different funding. Additionally, 59 ‘certified staff’, which could include teachers, 30 office professionals, and technical staff, are likely to be cut. This current plan would need board approval, likely in July, according to district leaders.
Kari Madden, the president of the Tacoma Federation of Education Support Professionals, says support staff help students with learning needs and those in the general student body.
“I worry about the students having enough support,” Madden said. “We see a lot of behavior issues and aggression. There are a lot of social-emotional needs that our students still have coming back from COVID and I worry that there is just going to be a lack of support in all areas.”
TPS’s Chief Financial Officer Rosalind Medina says that while ancillary staff are likely going to be targeted, in-classroom special education teachers and classrooms will still be funded in 2025-26.
“We may be offering those services differently, we may be paying for them out of different funding sources, and that may look a little different,” Medina said.
It’s the third year of a budget shortfall for the district. A $40 million gap last year contributed to 21% of the district’s administrative and technical staff being cut over the last two years. Medina points to several factors leading to the current financial situation. Tax revenues and funding from the state remain relatively flat, with the latter funding from the Legislature increasing by 1% for next year. That increase is far from enough to cover the rising costs of transportation, maintenance, and insurance. The biggest cost driver, to the tune of 86% of the TPS budget, is salaries and benefits.
“We’ve done the budget gimmicks that we can, we’ve done those easy cuts, and we’re now working on the difficult conversations around which programming can we let go of and which programming do we need to make sure that we keep whole,” Medina said.
Salaries are legally required to increase by a unique state inflation formula and to respect collective bargaining agreements. Annual raises at the administrative level are a point of contention for Madden’s union and for the Tacoma Education Association, which represents teachers. The Unions brought information to the district’s school board highlighting what they see as substantial salary increases among high-level district staff. KIRO 7 verified some of the salaries from data provided to the OSPI website.
The Director of Schools’ salary increased from 2019-20 to 2023-24 by 36% ($192,890 to $278,085), one of the Deputy Superintendent’s salary increased by 40.6% in that time ($230,568 to $348,212) and Medina’s position increased 30.3% across those four years ($232,369 to $315,616). Medina didn’t comment on the specifics of the salaries, as there are thousands of positions in TPS during the interview with KIRO 7, but noted that all salaries have increased in that time because of legal and bargaining agreements. She warns about ‘cherry-picking’ data points after administrative offices have been gutted a fifth of their staff in the last several years.
“It’s important for us to acknowledge that we’re all doing more work. We may be paid more as individual administrators, but we’re doing more work than we did before,” Medina said.
KIRO also pulled random school positions, finding that one Elementary teacher’s salary increased 28.6% in that time frame ($86,715 to $115,594), a secondary teacher increased 22.16% (92,224 to $115,212), and a secondary principal increased 20.4% ($175,628 to $215,469). While Tacoma Public Schools has the highest starting and top pay of any district, Madden points to the dollar amount increases being much higher for administrative staff than for teachers.
“Since 2023, those increases have dropped tremendously, I do see that. However, it seems like the damage was already done,” Madden said.
Medina says the cuts that have been publicized are not the final product. The board will need to approve next year’s budget, and she and staff still need to find an additional $8-$10 million in savings to balance it.
“We tried as best we could to keep cuts away from the classroom,” Medina said, “to keep cuts on discretionary activities like non-salary and benefit activities, but the reality is that they weren’t enough as we continue to see costs escalate.”
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