Anchorage School Board members laid out a plan to reinstate most, but not all displaced employees and cut programs at a finance committee meeting Wednesday.
Committee members reacted to House Bill 57 that passed the Legislature with broad bipartisan support and includes a $700 increase to the state’s per student funding formula, the Base Student Allocation. If Gov. Dunleavy signs the bill, it could mean just under $50 million in additional funding for the Anchorage School District.
Finance Committee Chair Kelly Lessens said the money would not reduce class sizes as much as she would like, but would fund many support staff critical to student success.
“We will be stopping the bleeding. Right now this is triage, as far as I'm concerned, to support our students to the best we can,” Lessens said. “The job isn’t done.”
Board members opted to assume an increase of only $560 to the BSA until the bill becomes law. They worked off an amendment passed during the budget process in February that showed how funding from a much larger increase would be reinserted to the classroom.
Nearly all cut positions would be reinstated with a $560 BSA increase, including middle and high school sports, foreign language immersion teachers and the IGNITE program for gifted students. Most nurses, librarians, counselors, and staff serving deaf students would be reinstated. Cuts made to the administration, maintenance and operations departments were not reinstated. A planned increase of four students per class would be reduced to just one, and class sizes would not revert to 2016 levels as the original amendment intended.
Prior to the start of the legislative session in January, Anchorage School Board members called for a $1,000 increase to the BSA, which was included in the Legislature’s original proposal. Dunleavy vetoed the bill, arguing that it did not include any of his requested policy changes, and legislators fell seven votes short of overriding his veto. Dunleavy introduced his own bill with a $560 increase to the BSA, which the Anchorage finance committee based their calculations on.
Dunleavy has vetoed education funding in some form for three consecutive years, and legislators have never successfully overridden his veto. Board member Carl Jacobs said the committee opted to assume the $560 BSA increase proposed by Gov. Dunleavy instead of the $700 figure included in HB 57 because of a lack of trust for the Legislature and governor.
“I’m not comfortable with — given the lack of fund balance that we have — depending on the Legislature to come through with exactly what they promised today, and I don’t think anyone should be,” Jacobs said.
When crafting the budget, board members assumed there would not be an increase to the BSA, but other large school districts did. Juneau built their budget around a $400 increase, the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District and the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District both assumed a $680 boost to match what passed last year, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District assumed a $1,000 increase.
Anchorage Chief Academic Officer Sven Gustafson noted that even at a $1,000 increase to the BSA, the district would still be cutting functions of instruction like technology and curriculum.
“There’s still stuff that’s not even on that $1,000 thing that makes a district run,” Gustafson said. “Even at a +1 PTR [Pupil to Teacher ratio], we’re going to have some bumps, we’re going to have some combo classes like we don’t have to have. No matter what, it’s not going to be hunky dory at all, we’re still going to have some problems.”
Chief Human Resources Officer Marty Lang said about 84 teachers are still displaced and 65 positions were cut because of enrollment declines, but most displaced teachers can be reinstated at their previous school. A general staffing event planned this week to give displaced teachers jobs at new schools was postponed.
“We postponed that so that we haven’t layered on another level of complexity on this to give us the most flexibility to be able to get people back to their original positions,” Lang said.
The board will meet Tuesday to vote on the finance committee’s proposal. The governor has until May 19 to sign the funding bill, veto it or let it become law without his signature. If he vetoes it, lawmakers have said they have the votes to override that decision. The deadline for the district to issue layoff notices to employees is May 15.
