Each year, NTPS leaders create a budget, which the School Board reviews and adopts in August. The budget includes all district costs, such as employee salaries and benefits, supplies, facilities, information technology, transportation, and more.

The NTPS budget is designed to achieve the goals described in our strategic plan and ensure we are good stewards of public dollars. View our 2022-23 school year budget and 4-year forecast report. 

We have begun planning for the 2023-24 school year. The district has worked throughout the 2022-23 school year to manage costs. Some of the ways we are doing this include reducing building and district supplies spending, limiting staff travel, and holding some positions vacant when employees leave.  These decisions have touched every school and department in the district.  

Many Washington state school districts are experiencing similar issues. There are several reasons for constrained budgets:  

• Enrollment: Our enrollment is slow to get back to our pre-COVID counts. We are still down by more than 520 students from 2019-20. Most school district funding is related to student enrollment.   
• Materials, supplies, and operating costs: Inflation and supply chain issues have led to higher costs to maintain district and building operations.   
• Compensation: We offer competitive salaries; our salary and benefits package help to attract and retain quality staff.  
• Benefits: The costs of offering benefits account for about 40% of our total staffing budget.  
• Federal COVID-19 relief funding: These temporary funds helped us balance our budget, but the money spent this year will not be replenished.  

We continue to monitor and weigh in on legislative decisions this spring on key funding issues such as special education and transportation funding, which will inform our district budget decisions. Read our 2023 NTPS Legislative Priorities. 

District leaders are using several guiding principles when preparing our 2023-24 budget:  

• Meet our contractual agreements 
• Align staffing levels with enrollment at each school or special program  
• Strive for equitable reductions through attrition across employee groups   
• Make decisions that are least impactful to the student learning environment  
• Make decisions that are least impactful to our short- and long-term strategic plan goals   
• Reduce staffing levels by not rehiring some positions when an employee retires or leaves the district 
• Fill necessary positions from within existing district staff   
• No staff layoffs