t Public budget meeting set for April 16.

As the Central Kitsap School District chugs forward in its ongoing balancing of the 2008-09 budget, members of the public will soon have the opportunity to ask questions about the process.

The district has scheduled a budget meeting, open to the public, that will take place from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, in the Jenne-Wright Administration Center gymnasium.

The meeting will feature a presentation by CKSD Superintendent Greg Lynch and Director of Operations David McVicker, followed by a question and answer session.

Lynch and McVicker put on the same presentation at Wednesday’s CKSD board meeting, which was more or less an update of budget talks that have been ongoing for the last few months.

In short, the district is trying to come up with about $600,000 for the 2008-09 school year budget and are looking at a variety of cuts to various programs.

“We believe our budget challenges are not CKSD-specific budget challenges,” Lynch said at Wednesday’s meeting.

The district could fall short as much as $4.5 million this time next year if it falls out of qualification for federal heavy impact funding. Should the district lose that funding — which won’t be known until next year — they’d have to dip into a savings of about $4.3 million that was set aside last year from funds normally dumped into the district’s capital projects fund.

“If we get hit with that, we at least have a little time to deal with that problem,” McVicker said last month.

The district also is forecasting for budget shortfalls through the 2012-13 school year.

In a bit of good news, Lynch and McVicker’s presentation revealed that the district’s enrollment figures — the root of the budget shortfalls — are slightly better than originally projected. Most noticeably, projections for the 2011-12 school year had originally been set at less than 10,000 students. That number has since been amended to a figure of around 10,500.

t Public budget meeting set for April 16.

As the Central Kitsap School District chugs forward in its ongoing balancing of the 2008-09 budget, members of the public will soon have the opportunity to ask questions about the process.

The district has scheduled a budget meeting, open to the public, that will take place from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, in the Jenne-Wright Administration Center gymnasium.

The meeting will feature a presentation by CKSD Superintendent Greg Lynch and Director of Operations David McVicker, followed by a question and answer session.

Lynch and McVicker put on the same presentation at Wednesday’s CKSD board meeting, which was more or less an update of budget talks that have been ongoing for the last few months.

In short, the district is trying to come up with about $600,000 for the 2008-09 school year budget and are looking at a variety of cuts to various programs.

“We believe our budget challenges are not CKSD-specific budget challenges,” Lynch said at Wednesday’s meeting.

The district could fall short as much as $4.5 million this time next year if it falls out of qualification for federal heavy impact funding. Should the district lose that funding — which won’t be known until next year — they’d have to dip into a savings of about $4.3 million that was set aside last year from funds normally dumped into the district’s capital projects fund.

“If we get hit with that, we at least have a little time to deal with that problem,” McVicker said last month.

The district also is forecasting for budget shortfalls through the 2012-13 school year.

In a bit of good news, Lynch and McVicker’s presentation revealed that the district’s enrollment figures — the root of the budget shortfalls — are slightly better than originally projected. Most noticeably, projections for the 2011-12 school year had originally been set at less than 10,000 students. That number has since been amended to a figure of around 10,500.