The Alaska House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill Wednesday that would substantially increase funding for public schools on a long-term basis for the first time in nearly a decade, passing the high-priority bill on a 24-16 vote. The bill now moves to the Senate.
House Bill 69 would increase the basic input into the state’s public school funding formula, the base student allocation, by $1,000. Lawmakers estimate it would raise public education spending roughly $275 million next school year.
It’s a significantly smaller funding increase than the bipartisan House majority caucus, made up of 14 Democrats, five independents and two Republicans, initially proposed. Originally, the bill called for three successive years of long-term funding increases — $1,808 in total baseline increases, an effort to return schools to the purchasing power they had in 2011 — plus yearly inflation adjustments. Lawmakers reduced the total increase to $1,000 after negotiations with the governor’s staff, though it’s not clear those negotiations resulted in a firm agreement on an acceptable bill.
“This bill is a wonderful compromise,” said Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, who sponsored the bill on behalf of the bipartisan majority caucus. “Schools have been waiting. They have cut the fat, they have cut the flesh, and we are now cutting into the bone of our education system. It is time to act, and this bill provides that opportunity.”
Boosting education funding was a key campaign issue for members of the Democrat-heavy majority caucus. Parents, teachers, students and community leaders have pleaded with lawmakers to increase school funding for years. The Anchorage School District last month approved a budget proposal that would lay off hundreds of teachers and staff, increase class sizes, and slash programs across the board, from language immersion to sports to elementary school gifted classes — but only if lawmakers and the governor do not approve at least a $1,000 increase in the base student allocation.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has said on numerous occasions he would not support a bill that raised education funding without policy changes aimed at boosting student achievement.
In an effort to avoid a repeat of last year’s veto of a similar bill that would have boosted school funding, majority lawmakers added a number of education policy changes to the current bill after negotiations with the governor’s staff.
Most notably, lawmakers added a reading-focused incentive program. The incentives, initially proposed in a separate bill by Dunleavy as a way to provide funding to boost reading proficiency in line with the governor’s Alaska Reads Act, would provide school districts with $450 for each student in grades K-6 who performs at grade level or demonstrates improvement on state tests in reading and English language arts.
“Yes, it is a funding bill — and it is a bill that includes policies that support charter schools, policies to finally support the Reads Act, policies banning cell phones, a policy on open enrollment and other measures,” Himschoot said.
Whether the policy initiatives included in the bill will be enough to satisfy Dunleavy is unclear. The governor said Friday, before the bill passed the House, that addition of the policy initiatives represented “positive movement.” But he stopped short of endorsing it, saying the path forward in the Senate presents an “opportunity to continue making improvements, both in cost and policy.”
His spokesperson did not return a request for an updated statement Wednesday afternoon.
The bill passed with every member of the 21-member bipartisan majority caucus in support, plus three members of the all-Republican minority: Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, Rep. Jeremy Bynum, R-Ketchikan, and Rep. Julie Coulombe, R-Anchorage.
Minority Republicans’ opposition to the bill concentrated on a few key areas. Some objected to what they saw as an inadequate public process. Others said they were concerned the state couldn’t afford the price tag, and that the state’s budget crunch could result in a tradeoff between education funding and Alaskans’ Permanent Fund dividends.
Many also said they weren’t satisfied with the policy changes added to the bill.
“I fully support adequate funding for education in Alaska, but funding alone, without meaningful reform, is insufficient,” Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, said.
Ruffridge, one of the three minority Republicans who broke ranks to support the bill, said he sympathized with many of his colleagues’ concerns.
“Many of us in this room recognize the need in our school system for additional resources,” Ruffridge said.
But, he added: “The people of Alaska have not had an opportunity to say anything to this bill, with the exception of that they would like an increase to the BSA.”
Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, who opposed the bill, told reporters after the vote that he was frustrated House majority members hadn’t outlined a clear way to come up with the money necessary for the school funding increase. Due to an unanticipated decline in oil prices, the state’s general fund is short more than half a billion dollars of what would be required to maintain essentially the status quo. And that’s before accounting for an even grimmer state revenue forecast released Wednesday.
“I'll be the first person to tell you that my school district certainly needs more money, and, really, the amount of money is going to be determined by the amount you can pay for,” he said. “If the majority wants to send me an unaffordable bill to vote on the floor, then I would expect the majority to send me a tax package to be able to pay for that, or tell me how they can reduce the PFD to a level that they can afford.”
Senators in the upper chamber’s largely Democratic bipartisan majority caucus said Tuesday they were working to find funding for the bill. Senate leaders are backing three major revenue measures, the most significant of which would reduce oil tax credits.
Senate Education Committee Chair Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, said the caucus hadn’t settled on how much of a public school funding increase they believed the state can afford.
“We recognize and understand that there are fiscal constraints we do have and have offered multiple solutions on how we might be able to get to a higher number,” she said.
Tobin also stressed that the Senate would look closely at the possible impacts of the policy initiatives within the bill and take public testimony.
Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, who wields significant power over the dividend and education funding as the operating budget co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said he was hesitant to support reducing the dividend beyond roughly $1,400.
Hoffman said that in some of the state’s poorest areas, in rural areas off the road system, the Permanent Fund dividend represents a third or more of residents’ annual disposable income.
“Over the last decades, people have become reliant upon these funds to provide for food, for heating, for clothing, for supplementing the way that they provide a subsistence lifestyle,” he said. “Those are the primary differences that we are facing between our negotiations with the House and the Senate.”
House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said he was confident lawmakers would find money to pay for the public school funding increase but declined to say where exactly they’d find it.
“We have some tough choices ahead of us. We really do,” Edgmon told reporters. “We all know the desperate need that our school districts have expressed in terms of more funding, and I don't see our caucus, or necessarily the Legislature as a whole, backing away from that commitment at this point.”
But asked how he would prioritize revenue measures and the many policy issues competing for a limited number of state dollars, including education funding, the dividend, and possible funding increases to Medicaid in anticipation of federal cutbacks, Edgmon said he could not.
“That’s what the committee process is for,” he said. “That’s an impossible question to address right now.”
