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.
