For decades, dozens of rural school districts have been asking the state for money to fix a range of serious health and safety problems. Only a small percentage of that money has come through.
Southeast Island School District Superintendent Rod Morrison got a chance to be heard. He was in Juneau to testify before the powerful Alaska Senate Finance Committee when he lifted a large lightbulb from a plastic shopping bag and showed it to committee members.
“You’ll see it almost caught on fire,” Morrison said, pointing out black marks on the top of the lightbulb. “This happened with six of our gymnasium lights and it’s obvious our fire suppression system was inoperable.”
Morrison’s district has made at least 17 funding requests to the state for financial assistance to replace the fire suppression system in the school at Thorne Bay, a small community northwest of Ketchikan.
“I would assume that we are on the brink of another Kasayulie 2.0 coming to us that may be more costly to the state than if we came forward and tried to do something about the condition of these schools,” said Alaska Senate Finance Committee co-chair Lyman Hoffman, a Democrat from Bethel.
Hoffman was referring to a successful lawsuit brought by a group of Alaska Native parents in 1997. They argued that Alaska’s education funding system violated its constitution and the federal Civil Rights Act. In 2011, a judge agreed and ruled that the Alaska Legislature had to find a more equitable way to fund infrastructure in rural school districts.
KYUK and ProPublica have spent the last year visiting rural schools and found the same kinds of conditions that spurred the case: leaking roofs, failing heating systems, and broken sewer lines.
“I would say that schools throughout the state, regardless of whether they are rural or urban, are likely not in a properly maintained state,” said Alaska Department of Education and Early Development Finance Manager Lori Weed during a presentation to lawmakers. In 2025, rural and urban schools have requested nearly $800 million for construction and maintenance from the state.
Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has requested $6.5 million for a plane that he says will be used for emergency response and for the executive branch, but the governor’s budget does not include any capital investment for schools. That stands out to senator and Alaska Senate Finance Committee co-chair Bert Stedman, a Democrat from Sitka. “My concern is the priorities of the requests to the Legislature are questionable,” he said.
“We’ve crossed the Rubicon of sanity here when it comes to school maintenance, Mr. Chairman,” said Sen. Jesse Kiehl. The Democrat from Juneau said that he was frustrated by the state’s lack of capital investment. “It sounds like the efficient frontier is fires and insurance claims, Mr. Chair, when I look at the financial incentives I see,” he said.
Senators did not make any final financing decisions on Friday. Several committee members noted the absence of Alaska Department of Education and Early Development Commissioner Deena Bishop, and noted that they were unable to ask follow-up questions of her staff; they left the meeting immediately following their presentation.
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