The Anchorage School District plans to reinstate 272 employees that were previously slated to be displaced. At a school board meeting Tuesday, the board unanimously approved a budget revision to spend nearly $40 million in expected revenue from a bill passed by the legislature that would increase state funding to schools.
The board passed a budget in February that cut 380 positions, but the district delayed layoffs for many employees. Board Member Pat Higgins said even with the increase, the district will likely face another budget crisis next year.
“Unless the legislature and the governor decide that their obligation is to fund, adequately, public education, we’re going to do this again next year,” Higgins said. “We won't have the same level of reserves that we have this year as we use them up to try to lessen the impact on academic outcomes.”
The current bill would increase the Base Student Allocation by $700. But at a committee meeting last week, board members opted only to budget for a $560, a figure Dunleavy has proposed. A $700 BSA increase would mean about $10 million in additional money for the Anchorage School District. School Board members said last week they based their budget amendment off Dunleavy’s proposed increase because of a lack of trust in the legislature to override the governor if he vetoes the bill.
The money from a $560 BSA increase allows the district to restore many of the cut programs and teachers. The district plans to increase the pupil-to-teacher ratio by one across all grade levels instead of four, reinstate staff for the IGNITE program for gifted students, language immersion teachers, special education teachers, teachers for deaf students, librarians, nurses, and other support staff.
Planned cuts to all middle school sports, high school hockey, gymnastics, swimming and diving would also be reversed.
Board members reorganized during the meeting and elected Carl Jacobs as Board President. Margo Bellamy will serve as Vice President for the next year.
Jacobs said the dire fiscal situation Alaska school districts face should be a wake-up call for legislators.
“Our system of funding public education right now is broken,” Jacobs said. “That is because our foundation formula requires political cooperation of a bipartisan nature to be updated, unlike the budget for our department of corrections or public safety.”
Other large Alaska school districts opted to build their budgets assuming increases in the BSA, but Anchorage did not. Districts in Fairbanks and on the Kenai Peninsula assumed an increase of $680 to the BSA to match what passed the legislature last year. The Juneau School District assumed a $400 increase, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District assumed a $1,000 increase to the BSA during their budget process.
Even with an additional $39.8M in projected revenue from the state, the Anchorage School District still cut $23 million from the budget.
If the full $700 BSA increase becomes law, the board’s budget revision states that additional funding would be spent on transportation, supporting career and technical education, and decreasing the budget deficit for next year. Current estimates show the deficit for next year between $70-80 million.
