By DAVID BOYLE
The Anchorage School District is headed off the fiscal cliff, led by the majority of the school board.
At the Feb. 22 board meeting, the board majority acknowledged the $40 million gap in the 2022-23 budget, a gap that somehow needs to be filled. They also acknowledged no cuts were possible. Despite this grim warning, all except member Dave Donley voted to pass the budget, hoping the State of Alaska will come to the rescue.
The ASD budget is $841.3 million and next year it is expected to go to $850.5 million, not an especially massive year-over-year increase.
But look back at the actual expenses for FY2020/21– $743.4 million. The increase spending over the two-year period is a staggering $107 million increase.
This increase is in the grants fund, a one-time influx of federal money due to Covid-19. These Elementary Secondary School Emergency Relief funds expire in fiscal year 2024. This is the fiscal cliff the district is being led over by the school board.
Here is the chart for FY2018-19 through FY2022-23:
The ASD board could not even cut a measly $62,000 from an $851 million budget. Board member Donley offered an amendment to cut $30,000 from support to the Alaska Association of School Boards. He reasoned that ASD is not represented adequately in relation to the other districts. He also added that the AASB does not even agree that a minimum of 10 students should be required to maintain a school in Alaska.
The AASB also does not want parental involvement in student surveys. It also opposes a district cost study, which may provide ASD more State funding.
Donley’s amendment failed on a vote of 4 to 1, with 2 abstentions.
Member Donley then offered an amendment to cut funding to the Coalition for Education Equity by $32,000. The CEE is an organization that supports more funding for rural schools, usually through its business model of litigation and settlements. The Anchorage School District is the only one of the five largest school districts in Alaska that even contributes to the CEE.
The CEE is primarily focused on getting more funding for public education. ASD Superintendent Bishop is on the board as a member-at-large. The executive director of NEA-Alaska, Glenn Bafia, is also a member-at-large. And State Sen. Tom Begich’s spouse is the executive director of the CEE.
The district hopes to get more funding from the State by increasing the Base Student Allocation. This is stated in its preliminary budget document. The CEE and the AASB are tools that can lobby for this increased funding.
As the ASD budget grows, the student population has decreased.
Here is the Average Daily Membership from 2020 through 2022. The district expects no increases in enrollment for next year.
Year 2019-20 45,466 students
Year 2020-21 41,265 students
Year 2021-22 42,887 students
The district could have reduced costs during the Covid years, but it continued to treat all costs as fixed costs. For example, transportation costs were paid to both contractor and ASD transportation personnel even though no students were transported in the 2020-21 school year.
School Board member Pat Higgins moved an amendment to defund the police in schools, also known as the School Resource Officer program. This effort to remove $2.3 million did not even receive a second.
The district is faced with the difficult decision to economize but it is hoping the State and Municipality bail it out.
School board members are elected to make the hard decisions, but this school board majority, with the exception of Donley, is pushing this budget decision down the road.
And so the Empire has been built. Don’t write a story about school budgets without including educational achievement results. We wouldn’t want people to think you were covering for the lack of ethics in public schools. If someone takes other people’s money in order to provide a service and they don’t deliver, why, that’s unethical, like racketeering.
pushing $20,000 per student.
Let it burn. Maybe a decent phoenix might rise from its failed ashes.
How much longer you gonna tolerate this, Anchorage? The costs go up, the results go down. Alaska as a whole pays the price.
All those charter and optional learning schools should all go private where the parents pay tuition. Asd can concentrate on its neighborhood schools. The district operates too many schools while the traditional neighborhood schools are failing its students and families in need of desperate attention.
If they can’t make the hard decisions and cut the budget due to less students attending at ASD, then everyone but Mr. Donley need to be voted off the School Board. Passing the buck and “hoping” for the State to fill the $40 million gap in spending more money than you have budget is ridiculous.
One time money for ASD (ASD ESSER II Funds: $50,070,679 AND ASD ESSER III Funds: initial 2/3 $75,342,593 final 1/3 $37,109,039 = $112,541,632 + ESSER II funds = $162,612,311!!!) from the feds was to be used to address: learning loss, preparing schools for reopening, and testing, repairing, and upgrading projects to improve air quality in school buildings already are permitted under the CARES Act.
‘https://education.alaska.gov/news/COVID-19/ESSER%20CRRSA%20CARES%20Fund%20Allocations%201.15.2021.pdf
‘https://education.alaska.gov/arp-state-plan/5.24.2021%20ARP%20ESSER%20III%20School%20District%20Allocations.pdf
Well when the bank account is empty let the board figure it out and see what they can cut then. And these are the leaders and teachers of our future wow something to be proud of and brag how they broke the school district with there leadership.
Thank goodness Pat Higgins suggestion of defunding the school resource officers did not receive a second. With Restorative discipline replacing real discipline, these officers are the life line for student safety in ASD
Higgins rationale for saving money sounds to me like he fell off the Turnip Truck and hit his head.
I hope the state and city tell them no.
There is an election coming this April. A conservative can only hope for some transition in these board members. Evan that does not equate to budget cuts though!
I am thinking a 100% reduction in School Board salaries is warranted.
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And, people want to re-elect these idiots???
Union members are re-electing these idiots because their income depends on it. Normal people are less directly affected, so they have far less incentive to vote. Plus, since school board elections are district wide, only well-funded (union-backed) candidates can be competitive. We need to break up the school district. At least into four districts. South Anchorage, East Anchorage, West Anchorage, and Eagle River/Chugiak.
A few easy cuts:
1) The entire equity and compliance office needs to be terminated.
2) Any and all fees given to school board associations including the one that decided to petition the government to declare parents, ‘domestic terrorists’, need to end.
That would be a decent start.
The ASD campaigns every year that they are in dire straights and they need money–despite the fact that student enrollment has decreased for the past few years. Then after any election they magically find extra money. We cannot continue to sustain the bloated government entity–and yes, I support students and schools. But I don’t support continuing to give extra money when it is clear that money does not solve our problems of failing students and lowest test scores in the country
Can you imagine your given the keys to the farm and in the end look at your alls accomplishments for the people by the people of the people. It’s not incompetence these are educated union members. It’s oath breakers and corruption gone wild so help me GOD they swear to. Then Mocking GOD the citizens our students and carrying on like all is well. Exposed oath breakers look at what you all have caused.
Anchorage’s resent history of electing incompetent unqualified unethical people is something that the rest of the state doesn’t want to pay for. You made it, you eat it.
Nowhere to cut, eh? They’re spending $19,610 per student per year. I’m sure parents could easily find excellent private schooling for half that. Dismantle the public school system and issue vouchers at $10,000 per student. There. I just saved the city $412,000,000. You’re welcome, Anchorage.
With oil at near $100/bbl the state coffers are literally awash in petro-dollars. The school board knows full well they will be funded by the state beyond their wildest dreams. This has been the pattern for at least the last 40 years.
$20,000 per student, 30 per classroom, = $600,000 per classroom. Are you getting your monies worth? Lowest test scores in the world for the money! What could good teachers do with $600,000 per classroom… not one person public employee missed a paycheck while businesses closed and people lost everything….who is the government? Take control of our public money and allow parents to decide what kind of program can be created with these resources…. choice, its about your choice, as a parent and tax payer… woke schools filling your kids brains with BS we pay for…time for a change!…. Give parents the right to choose what and where their children get educated and let our tax dollars go there… Parents need to be in charge of their children’s “programming”… School Choice is the answer….
Really wanna fix this? Two simple steps.
1-Require district representation for board seats. One street in one neighborhood can conceivably fill all the seats.
2-Gee rid of the unions
Electing school board members at-large is the business model across the Nation thanks to the teachers unions. That is exactly how those unions control the K12 education system. We do need to change how these board members are elected. Apportion them just like we do for Assembly members. It is not difficult. Remember when one board member, Pat Higgins, was living in the Marshall Islands-some 4,000 miles away-and he said he still represented his community? And he got away with it! Start a movement to elect school board members by districts, just like the Assembly and legislature.
“At the Feb. 22 board meeting, the board majority acknowledged the $40 million gap in the 2022-23 budget, a gap that somehow needs to be filled. They also acknowledged no cuts were possible.”
The cupboard’s bare! Where’s a math major when you need one.
Last night a friend of mine was telling me of her recent promotion. She had obtained some college credits for work done since the pandemic was created (started). Good for her. The ASD will back pay her raise to 2020, when she started obtaining the credits…. Who does that?
Do we want people so out of touch with fiscal responsibility and reality teaching our kids?
Don’t tell me sad stories of underpaid teachers anymore….
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