The Sumner School District’s 2011-2012 general fund budget is up overall from 2010-2011, but it is also anticipated to be another year of deficit spending.

It will be the second year in a row of budgeted deficits, and marks the third deficit in four years. It is also the largest deficit in that period, at $606,558.

“It looks like we’re going to have another deficit year,” Executive Director of Business Services Debbie Campbell said in her budget hearing presentation to the district board of directors.

More than 80 percent of the general fund was allocated for employee salaries and benefits. Those expenditures were budgeted at $62,703,610, their highest since the 2008-2009 school year, and their second-highest since 2002-2003.

However, the school district was still in labor negotiations with the Sumner Education Association as of July 13, causing the final budget numbers to remain fluid.

“We still don’t have our teacher contracts settled,” Board Director Mike Pavlik said to Campbell. “How does that fit into the budget we see here?”

Campbell responded that the budget being presented was a projection, and that the district could repurpose between funds to correct differences to actual expenditures.

General purpose state funding was down 2.9 percent from 2010-2011, or more than $1 million. Special purposes state funds have risen 7.2 percent from the previous year, by nearly $550,000.

Local taxed and non-taxed funding is also up by 5.9 percent and 19.6 percent, respectively.

Special and general purpose Federal funding is down from the previous year by a total amount of approximately $500,000, but district expenditures for Federal programs such as Title I Stimulus, Fiscal Stabilization and IDEA stimulus have evaporated to match the difference.

Notable education investments by the district in the upcoming school year, according to budget documents provided by the district, include special education and vocational education in middle schools.

Special Education expenditures are set to rise to more than $7.1 million after years of declining expenditures to the 2010-2011 level of a little more than $6 million.

Vocational middle school education expenditures will be $217,726 in the upcoming school year, following a year of zero expenditures in that category. Vo-tech expenditures were $17,635 and $14,491 in the two years prior.