PALMER — Mat-Su school officials want residents to help shape the district’s upcoming budget cuts through a new online survey open now through the end of February.
The three-question survey asks users to rank which Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District programs and topics are most important to them, and where they believe the district can slash spending.
The survey comes as district officials face an expected $23 million funding shortfall for the 2026-27 school year and plan the deep cuts they say will be necessary to keep local schools running. Officials said they will use the rankings to help decide how to distribute those reductions.
While parent budget questionnaires are nothing new in Mat-Su, this year’s survey format is. Past efforts asked open-ended questions about cuts and priorities; this year’s version asks users to rank a list of options and leaves no room for open comments.
“We’re asking people to look at things they maybe haven't considered before, like consolidating neighborhood schools, increasing facility usage fees, reducing bus routes,” district spokesman John Notestine said in an interview. “We’ve pared the options down to things we’re actually considering and that are going to have to be looked at with the $23 million budget shortfall.”
The anticipated funding crunch is driven by several factors, including rising costs for everything from pencils to personnel and state and borough funding that has not kept pace with inflation, district officials told the school board late last year.
The district addressed a similar shortfall for the current school year by combining more than $10 million in cuts with $3 million in spending from the district’s savings.
But district administrators told the school board that using reserves again is not a good option because it would leave those funds dangerously low.
Instead, they recommend across-the-board reductions that could include cutting teaching and administrative staff, increasing class sizes, slashing activities, raising fees, and reducing transportation — all options included in the survey.
The survey is open until Feb. 20. The results will be presented to the Mat-Su School Board ahead of its March 4 meeting, which is expected to include a preliminary budget presentation for 2026-27.
Notestine said a second budget feedback tool, known as Balancing Act, will open for responses soon. That platform allows users to workshop adjustments to the district’s budget and submit individual comments and ideas.
This story originally appeared in the Mat-Su Sentinel and is republished here with permission.
