By DAVID BOYLE
The Anchorage School Board has developed a next year’s budget based on the Legislature increasing the Base Student Allocation by $560, which would provide the district with an additional $39.8 million for the next school year.
But the district further states that it will have a $74 million budget deficit in 2027.
This is shortsighted at best and counts on the Legislature to provide even more funding when the state is facing a fiscal cliff.
The district allocates about $30 million of the new funding to “direct instruction”, the classroom. This includes increasing the pupil-teacher ratio by only one student versus the original increase of that ratio by four students in the previous FY26 budget.
This “direct instruction” would include funding the IGNITE program, elementary summer school, preschool, Battle of the Books, elementary immersion teachers, and elementary special ed teachers.
It also funds 21 “holdback teachers” and adds another 5 of these teachers who are used to fill in for teachers who are absent from their classrooms. It doesn’t seem like this would be a direct instruction factor. This may provide flexibility, but it could also bea “slush” fund.
The $30 million in new funding pays for more than 213 full-time employees (FTE). Remember, these are positions not real live teachers. Here is the chart showing the $30 million expenditures:
By reversing cuts to the gifted program, elementary school immersion teachers, and adding funding to charter schools, the district has garnered the support of those parent groups to fight for even more funding next year.
The district has decided to use another $9.8 million to pay for “instructional support” employees. These additions are much more controversial and are not directly related to classroom learning.
This includes the following FTEs: 12.5 librarians, 13 elementary nurses, 5 principals, 8 library assistants, 3.5 counselors, and 2.5 elementary counselors. The total FTEs is increased by 59 for a $9.8 million cost.
This chart shows those positions (FTEs) added to the FY26 budget:
Why is the district adding more non-teachers, known as overhead, when it faces a horribly large deficit of $74.5 million in 2027?
Here’s why. The AEA, the ASD teachers’ union, knows very well that it is losing teachers due to the decreasing number of students in the future. Thus, it will be losing union members.
But the AEA also knows that it can increase its membership by adding librarians, nurses, library assistants, and counselors. And that is what’s happening in the ASD FY26 budget.
ASD is gambling that it can extort more funding from the legislature and the AEA can also maintain its membership and power by adding employees this next year.
So, while the school board is adding more personnel back to the budget and adding more costs, it should be saving this funding for the next fiscal year which looks even more bleak.
Adding more personnel when the student population is decreasing and the state is facing a huge fiscal crisis in the coming years is unfathomable.
The administration projects a huge $74.5 million budget hole for the next fiscal year. It could save the $9.8 million shown above for the “instructional support” cost and help fill next year’s budget hole and further avoid giving “pink slips” to newly hired employees.
But it is apparent that the district is counting on getting even more funding from the Legislature next session. That may be very difficult if the price of oil plummets and even more people leave Alaska.
We can look forward to the Education Establishment demanding more money to improve student outcomes even when those outcomes are not linked to more funding.
And that may mean an even smaller PFD — or maybe none at all.
David Boyle is a writer for Must Read Alaska.
I have the solution… give ASD more money! Advocates for more school funding are woefully ignorant, or criminal.
Novel idea, but you could take this article and pretty much find it verbatim 30 years ago, maybe MRAK could post a few of them. Just maybe Alaska voters will wake up.
If these morons cared about the voters we wouldn’t have the dumbest kids in the Nation They only care about their pockets and draining the PFD from people that don’t have kids in school
First rule of finance: don’t spend more than you make. I’m assuming Mr. Boyle’s numbers are accurate. ASD Board is derelict in their duty, period. A school board’s job does not include speculative political shenanigans like acting as if the State will bail them out so go ahead and budget twice as many expenditures as income – this is fraud, and corrupt to the core. The State and the feds MUST NOT bail out ASD – and let the Board squirm trying to find ways to restore a balanced budget, now saddled with a horrible debt. My suggestions:
1. fire all the Anchorage School Board except Dave Donley;
2. fire 2/3 of the ASD administration, starting with the superintendent;
3. ban cell phones and other personal devices from classrooms except during instructional lab times;
4. concentrate instruction on the 3 “r”s, with a dose of civics and personal finance – everything else is fluff;
5. close smaller schools strategically and sell the buildings – even swimming pools and hockey rinks;
6. larger class sizes – and expand enforcement of class discipline (I went to school with 32-kid classes, and we scored grade-level and higher on standardized tests);
7. balance the ASD budget – and give the teachers (not the admin or the AEA) a reasonable pay raise… no bonds, no debt, no tax increases, no pfd raiding, no bsa abuse – ASD, you don’t get more money, period;
8. turn down thermostats, and other common sense infrastructure savings.
These are just a few – I’m certain that MRAK readers can add greatly to my suggestion list…
The status quo just can’t do.
Ya know what. I’m going to say it.
Having the most diverse school district in the entire country is the problem. There’s no amount of money or teachers that is going to fix the problem. The diversity is regressing to its natural mean and pulling down everything with it. Diversity is the fundamental problem and we’re killing the future by pretending otherwise.
Ask yourself, why did every country that was given “independence” in the 1960s regresses and starts exporting “refugees” and “immigrants” once self rule was obtained. It wasn’t racism and White privilege that caused this issue.
This type of budget shell game(s) is why I vote against every school board member that comes up for election and vote against every school bond that comes up for vote. School bonds, NO!
This funding goat rope has nothing to do with students. Nothing. Teacher-Student ratio is all about money for teachers. Zero to do with better test scores, mathematical ability and reading comprehension. Young parents don’t know or understand that this is all driven by the NEA and AFT to put more money in the pockets of union members under the guise of Base STUDENT Allocation. The Jharrett Bryantt administration has been a disaster since he was hired. Budgets not met. Budget shortfalls. Budget surprises. Slipping student test scores. School closures every time the wind blows. If the administration would put as much effort into raising scores as they do trying to create trans kids and hiding it from their parents, Anchorage schools would be the envy of the US.
They aren’t ignoring it. They don’t care. They know exactly what they are doing.
When it gets to crisis point the muni will hit you with more taxes and higher millage rates to pay for it.
While they drive the debt up even further.
Why don’t they pull from that slush fund they are hiding?
Today’s experiment:
Go out and buy yourself a European sport car for WAY more than you can afford.
March into your bosses office, and tell them you spent more than you can afford on a luxury item.
Then demand a raise so you can afford the payments.
.
See how well that works out.
.
But, for some reason, politicians can do EXACTLY that. And, we let them.
Why should the district worry about the shortage? We the people will be forced to foot the shortages! FOLLOW THE MONEY…
AUDIT! AUDIT! AUDIT! Find out where the money actually goes!
Just the amount spent on the last two out of state Superintendents alone is enough for a criminal indictment.
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