By DAVID BOYLE
The Anchorage School Board admitted this week that it can get through the next school year with a very small increase in the Base Student Allocation, also known as the BSA.
This runs counter to the education industry’s cries to the Alaska Legislature that it needs a BSA increase of $1,413 just to keep its doors open.
The board figured out how much it would cost to keep all the previous programs it was going to do away with to balance the budget.
This discussion was neither on the record in the board meeting nor in the budget documents.
The amount the board arrived at was a minimal $110 BSA increase from the Legislature.
The board then discussed adding programs and teachers back into the previous budget.
During the discussion, Board Vice Chairman Carl Jacobs offered an amendment to next school year’s budget that added $8,781,000 for a total of $894,240,584. This would be a net decrease of $10,901,416 from last year’s budget.
Even though this is a decrease of about 1.2%, the district has lost 894 students since last school year — a more than 2% loss in students.
The vote was 7-0 in favor of the amendment to increase spending.
Here are the details for the increased spending:
• Reverse the proposed elimination of 10 holdback teacher full-time equivalent (FTE) at a cost of $1,237,737;
• Reverse the proposed elimination of 36.30 teacher FTE across the district at a cost of $4,548,839;
• Reverse the proposed elimination of 5 language immersion FTE, at a cost of $604,399;
• Reverse the proposed elimination of 18 IGNITE FTE, at a cost of $2,204,016;
• Ensure that the Pupil: Counselor metric is 300:1 or less at all eight comprehensive high schools by allocating an additional 1.5 net Counselor FTE across Chugiak, Service and South high schools, so that each would receive an additional 0.5 Counselor FTE, at a cost of $186,000.
Community members showed up in force to complain about the elimination of the gifted-student IGNITE program’s teachers. Their shouts were heard, and the program was restored in the budget.
Sixty-nine teacher FTEs were not eliminated. These positions were budgeted at a total of $8,594,991. Note that these may be vacant, funded teacher positions that are never actually filled.
Only member Dave Donley offered to cut extraneous expenses that add nothing to classroom instruction. His amendments would have reduced the budget by about $10 million but the board would have nothing to do with that.
Donley offered an amendment that would decrease the funding of the Coalition for Education Equity, a nonprofit that lobbies for more money for rural schools. The Anchorage taxpayer pays $30,000 per year to this nonprofit. According to Donley, “The CEE does not support the best interests of the Anchorage taxpayer.” Anchorage is the only one of the Big 5 school districts that funds the CEE.
The CEE opposes the formation of local governments in rural Alaska that would be required to levy local taxes to support their schools, opposes the number of students needed to qualify for a school, opposes the need for parental consent for getting personal information of students, and opposes ASD’s efforts to get a new district cost study that would benefit the ASD. Donley’s motion got no second, so it died.
Donley also offered an amendment to cut the $44,000 that the district pays to the Council of Great City Schools. That group represents very large urban school districts whose values do not represent our school district. Member Pat Higgins seconded the motion. It failed 5-2.
Member Donley offered an amendment to reduce non-classroom administrative costs by $2.245 million. Member Kelly Lessens seconded the motion for discussion. The board refused to reduce these expenses by a vote of 6-1.
Donley also moved to defund the Alaska Association of School Boards because Anchorage is severely underrepresented. The AASB opposes the formation of local governments so they can tax and fund their schools. Board president Margo Bellamy is on the AASB board. This amendment also failed, due to no second.
Member Donley moved to cut the Office of Equity and Compliance, now called the Office of Community Engagement but there was no second to his motion, so it died.
So, the board says it is heading to a fiscal cliff while adding nearly $9 million of non-classroom spending to next year’s budget.
To balance the budget, the district is using $71.2 million from its piggy bank savings account.
The budget reveals that the district only needs a very minimal increase in the BSA so that it doesn’t have to cut its dues and fees to marginally helpful organizations. This is interesting because Anchorage has about 33% of the state’s student population.
The board will present its budget to the Anchorage Assembly, but it is, for now, an unbalanced budget.
It is betting on a “wing and a prayer” that the Legislature will at least increase the BSA by a minimum of $110, thus balancing its budget.
The final vote on the amended budget for next school year was 6-1, with Dave Donley voting “no.”
See a list of all the amendments here.
Wade through the ASD budget for next school year at this link.
David Boyle is the education writer for Must Read Alaska.
