Oregon Public Broadcasting

As school districts around Oregon dig for money to keep classes going for the rest of the year, Portland will be one of the first to propose next year’s budget. Rob Manning has more.

Portland had to scrape together reserves and savings to keep teachers in classrooms through the end of this school year. Next year doesn’t look any easier.

School districts get more money from the state school fund than from any other source -- and with those revenues falling, schools will have less money to spend, while costs continue to rise.

In February, the Portland district expected at least a $20 million  shortfall for next year. That was before the state’s budget gap for the next biennium ballooned to $3 billion.

The declining revenues seem to lock in the prediction Superintendent Carole Smith made a month ago: that classrooms couldn’t be spared.

Other school districts plan to propose budgets in the next few weeks. School boards tend to sign off on them in the late spring -- after the legislature passes the state budget.