Olympia's budget woes delayed for another year

Last night the budget was adopted 3-2.

Board members Lehman and Bob Shirley voted against the budget. Board president Rich Nafziger, vice president Carolyn Barclift and board member Michelle Parvinen voted in favor.

“I’m sympathetic to the perspective that Bob and Russ have presented that we should be making as big of cuts as we can,” Nafziger said before Monday night’s vote. “But we need a strategic approach.”

Looming over the budget discussion was the $1 million or more in cuts the district faces in the 2008-09 school year, which all the board members agreed will hurt programs. But district officials hope that a strategic plan being formulated will guide those decisions.

$1 million seems massive, until you compare it to the size of the overall budget, $81-odd million. That $1 million represents just 1.23%.

Could every position and every program take a 1.23% hit? Or is "thinking small" just not politically feasible?