The Anchorage School District is facing a budget deficit of $107 million. The School Board met for several hours to discuss ways to address the shortfall last Saturday.
Board members spent much of the meeting using a tool called Balancing Act to show how cuts to various departments could be used to balance the budget. Aggregate data from each of the board member’s budget decisions will be released next week, and the tool was released to the public on Wednesday.
Board Member Margo Bellamy summed up the district’s budget dilemma.
“I could not balance this budget without cutting programs and people. There is no other way to do it,” Bellamy said. “I don’t care how optimistic we are. I mean there’s a lot that’s unknown but this is very frustrating for me.”
Member Kelly Lessens said she did her best to maintain a low pupil-to-teacher ratio during the exercise, opting instead for cuts to sports and activities.
“It's my duty to understand what the community values, and I understand the community values class sizes, which is why I acted as I did this morning,” Lessens said. “It certainly raises the question of, is this an emergency? And it truly is.”
School Board President Andy Holleman was the first to balance the budget using the tool, doing so by assuming a $1,500 increase to the Base Student allocation, the state’s per-student funding formula. Board Member Carl Jacobs took the opposite approach, working to erase the budget deficit without assuming any additional funding from the state.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and lawmakers have made education funding a priority for the upcoming legislative session. But even if lawmakers pass the same $680 increase to the Base Student Allocation as they did last year, which was vetoed as a permanent increase by Dunleavy, the district would still have a $62 million deficit.
Holleman said the board will plan for a small BSA increase, and likely make revisions in April depending on what passes the Legislature.
“I think we will do a budget based on a reasonable increase, see what happens in February, and then do what we absolutely have to do in April before deadlines pass for us to notify teachers about layoffs,” Holleman said.
According to projections from a finance committee meeting Thursday, the $107 million deficit would result in the loss of 598 jobs. Board members also discussed using the district’s available savings to help cover some of the deficit. A supermajority of board members could vote to authorize $47 million in additional spending.
Office of Management and Budget Senior Director Katie Parrott said draining the district savings account to balance the budget is not typical.
“Those have not historically or traditionally been funds that were used to balance the budget because they're very much one time funds,” Parrott said. “It is a very real deficit, and using that fund balance really only helps get us through one more year.”
The district has drawn over $30 million from the fund balance each of the last two years.
The board must forward a balanced budget to the Anchorage Assembly by mid-February.
