Her mantra regarding the budget has been simple.

“Revenues are supposed to be larger than expenditures,” South Kitsap School District superintendent Michelle Reid said during the Aug. 5 public hearing regarding the Sept. 1 to Aug. 31, 2015 budget.

Tracy Patterson, SKSD assistant superintendent of business services, believes that will be the case. She projects the district to have about $97.6 million in revenues and more than $97.2 million in expenditures.

Revenue is projected to increase 2.1 percent from 2013-14, Patterson said, because of the successful four-year renewal levy that passed in February 2013.

The new collection rates began midway through the last school year. She said expenditures increased by about .5 percent from the previous school year.

Revenue could increase or decrease based on enrollment because of state funding. Greene Gasaway Architects of Federal Way, which SKSD retains to project future attendance, expects the district to have 8,715 full-time equivalent (FTE) students in 2014-15. School board president Chris Lemke believes that is a conservative estimate.

“I think that puts us in a very good position right now because I think our numbers are going to come in a bit stronger than that,” he said.

Patterson also expects the district’s fund balance to increase to $8.1 million when school begins and reach about $8.5 million when SKSD’s next budget year ends.

Reid expects the school board to adopt the budget during the Aug. 19 meeting.

• Reid wants SKSD to hold a “town-hall style” meeting Sept. 16 at South Kitsap High School to discuss the district’s strategic plan. She said SKSD is going through a “rebranding” process that will include a redesigned website.

“There are many symbols for the district,” Reid said. “We need to align that and refresh it.”

Some of that relates to adhering to the district’s Policy Governance operations model, which the school board adopted in 2009. Through this operations model, a district’s board of directors consults the community to establish “ends,” or long-term, detailed policies for its schools.

The Policy Governance concept was developed by John Carver to help board of directors to decide on “ends” rather than “means” to achieve its goals.

It also relates to Reid’s mission to increase the district’s average of those who “successfully enter post-secondary education,” which she said means being “career and college ready,” to 80 percent for the Class of 2020. In May, Reid said SKSD’s average was 46 percent — 14 percent below the state average.

SKSD has retained the services of consultant Harriette Rasmussen of Kirkland to assist with restructuring of the strategic plan.

According to Rasmussen’s résumé, she has served as an “organizational and leadership development coach” since 2000 to aid with “strategic organizational alignment, transformation and leadership development that results in all students prepared for post-secondary education.”

• Paul Hulbert was introduced as East Port Orchard Elementary School’s principal. He replaces Kristi Smith, who left in June to become the director of teaching and learning in the Clover Park School District. Smith was EPO’s principal since 2000. Hulbert was the assistant principal at Union Ridge Elementary School in southwest Washington’s Ridgefield School District.

• The school district and the South Kitsap Association of Principals reached a collective bargaining agreement through 2017.