Oak Harbor schools facilities staff juggle budget cuts, rising maintenance demands

Crews are still moving at Forest Vista Learning Center, one of the clearest signs that Oak Harbor Public Schools is not putting all facilities work on hold. District officials say Forest Vista is expected to wrap up in summer or fall 2026, and the larger Crescent Harbor Elementary project is slated for summer or fall 2027, giving families a concrete look at what they can expect to see finished despite the squeeze on day-to-day maintenance.

That squeeze was laid out for the Oak Harbor School Board on April 13, when Director of Facilities Brian Hunt described a department being asked to do the same or more work with fewer people. The scale is hard to miss: the facilities team has already completed 2,200 work orders this school year while overseeing nearly 800,000 square feet of buildings and 260 acres of property and grounds. In broader operational terms, the district also described the system as about 850,000 square feet across 450 acres, a workload that forces staff to triage repairs and keep the most heavily used spaces open first.

The pressure is not coming only from classrooms. Oak Harbor Public Schools said public use of school buildings has risen sharply during evenings and weekends, especially in gyms, which adds wear and tear when custodian and substitute staff are often needed to keep spaces usable. That makes the city of Oak Harbor’s recreation-center study relevant far beyond parks and rec politics. The city received $200,000 from the Washington Legislature in 2024 to study the idea, and public forums were held April 14 and April 16, but council members have already stressed that a feasibility study does not guarantee construction.

Long-term, the district is also staring at state energy rules that could force more upgrades. Washington’s Clean Buildings Performance Standard, signed into law in 2019 and expanded in 2022 and 2023, covers buildings larger than 20,000 gross square feet. Oak Harbor Public Schools says all of its buildings fall above that threshold, and Tier 2 covered buildings between 20,000 and 50,000 square feet must begin reporting by July 1, 2027. That deadline lands as the district is already balancing budgets and staffing, after warning in 2024 that it might cut $3.8 million and eliminate 53 positions for the 2024-25 budget year.

To decide what comes next, the district has spent two years working with citizens through its Capital Facilities Advisory Committee, which began in the 2023-24 school year. Oak Harbor Public Schools also opened a facility-improvements prioritization survey in January 2026, a sign that the bigger question is no longer whether repairs are needed, but which ones families will see first and which will have to wait.