The cost of virtually everything has spiked over the last year, and school districts deep in preparation for the 2022-23 school year already are feeling the pain.
Iowa鈥檚 largest school district, which starts its new school year on Aug. 24, is shelling out double last year鈥檚 cost for fuel. An Oregon district is putting off a paving project for a year after costs ballooned far beyond what the district鈥檚 voters had approved the district to spend. Many districts, within weeks of opening their doors for the school year, are raising fees for school meals to account for dramatic increases in the cost of bread, meat, cheese, and milk.
With fixed budgets complicated by local, state, and federal funding that rolls out on different schedules, school districts often struggle to adjust to unexpected costs. Some can shift funds around or tap into savings without much issue, but others find themselves experiencing a deficit, laying off staff, or canceling vital investments in teaching and learning to stay afloat.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really wearing on all of us,鈥� said Michelle Hamilton, director of purchasing for the 58,000-student Mesa district in Arizona, which opens Aug. 4 for the new school year.
Just as the pandemic was beginning in early 2020, a case of paper cost the Mesa school district $23.29. This month, the district placed an order for hundreds of cases at $41 per case.
To add insult to injury, shipments of these unusually pricey goods are taking far longer than usual, as industries struggle to find enough workers to make and transport items.
The Mesa district used to get a truckload of paper one to two weeks after placing an order. Now, an order placed in April still hasn鈥檛 arrived nearly three months later.
Consumer prices jumped 9 percent between July 2021 and July 2022, according to estimates from the . The last time they increased that dramatically in one year was , four decades ago.
