By DAVID BOYLE
After poring through 474 pages of the ASD budget for school year 2025-26, I have come up with some areas where the district can save money and actually fill its entire budget hole of $4.3 million. It doesn’t need any more funding from the state.
Remember, a budget is a planning document that forecasts incoming revenue and outgoing expenses. For example, a teacher in the ASD is costed at $110,000 for budgeting purposes. But some cost more and some cost less.
In this column I will focus on the Full time Equivalents (FTE) versus the budget numbers because 87% of the ASD budget is salaries and benefits. And an FTE represents personnel salaries and benefits. That is where the money is.
There are several overall findings throughout the budget that reveal how the district has reduced positions mostly at the less costly FTE levels. So, it can maintain that it has reduced the number of personnel but one must know if these reductions were of the higher or lower cost FTEs. At its headquarters the district has reduced the number of lower cost FTEs and retained the higher cost FTEs.
The district must contend with a decreasing student population, and it expects to lose an additional 107 students for the next school year. For the 2025-26 school year the district projects a student count of 38,821 plus an additional 2,000 correspondence students.
It is also restricted by the school board guardrails. One of the board’s guardrails states, “Superintendent will not operate elementary schools without mental health services.” This is a costly mandate to the superintendent and reduces his flexibility to reduce the budget.
The district used one-time federal ESSER (Covid) funds to pay for more than 530 FTEs in FY24. Four hundred and ninety-seven of these were teacher FTEs. These were not recurring funds, so they were not available for the following years. It increased the per student costs by $500, $781, $273 in FY 22, FY23, and FY24, respectively. Now it is counting on the legislature to backfill these lost funds.
That is one way the district dug its huge budget hole. One could call this fiscal irresponsibility, as the district was advised by the Department of Education & Early Development not to spend ESSER funds on recurring expenses, such as employee salaries and benefits.
The General Fund is the day-to-day operating fund and that is what I will focus on. In FY24 that fund was about $623M and in FY26 it is about $595M, a decrease of 4.7%. Much of that decrease can be attributed to the decrease in the number of students from 42,156 to 40,821, a loss of 1,335 students.
Here is a list of potential savings that the ASD can use to back fill its budget deficit:
- One source of revenue that the district does not include due to accounting rules is the E-rate revenue it receives. In FY24 the district received $620,979 in E-rate revenue. This should be counted as prospective revenue for FY26 because it will come.
- The DEI/Community Engagement department was funded at $584,858 for FY24, $603,621 for FY25 and $724,122 for FY26. This is an increase of 20% from FY25 to FY26. This department could be reduced to zero and save $724,122. At least, reduce the “professional & technical” line item by $102,000, the budgeted increase for FY26.
- Communications & External Affairs. Knowing the importance of controlling the message, the ASD headquarters has two people assigned as “Assistant Director of Communications”. In FY26 there is an increase from one to three directors since FY23. Information is power and the superintendent learned this lesson very well. One director FTE should be reduced at a savings of at least $179,000.
- Here is a fine example of bureaucratic bloat:
| FY22 | FY24 | FY25 | FY26 | |
| Classroom Teachers | 1,790 | 1,772 | 1,908 | 1,603 |
| Directors | 23 | 27 | 35 | 35 |
Note these are all certificated teacher FTEs. While the number of classroom teachers has decreased substantially, the number of directors has increased. Although there may not be a cost savings, the number of directors should be reduced and those FTEs put into the classroom where the learning occurs. But wait, there’s more!
- Human Resources has six directors! Total Salaries/benefits=$ 4,638,003. Why are there six directors? One FTE was even moved from classified FTE to certificated FTE. Recommend reducing the six directors to four. Estimated cost savings = $350,000 (unable to disaggregate all 32 FTEs total for the department).
- Mental Health Department: Here is a great example of bureaucratic bloat. In FY 22 there was no department. In FY25 there were 4.5 FTEs that were certificated and in FY 26 there were 3.5 FTEs that were certificated. Its budget has gone from zero in FY22 to $1,777,433 in FY26. It is questionable why there are certificated teachers in the mental health department.
- Middle School Education. There is one certificated FTE — and that person makes $414,117 in salary and at least another $70,000 in benefits. This is much more costly than the superintendent. This represents almost four classroom teachers.
- There are five IT directors and 98 IT professionals. This department does not write software or code. Reduce the directors to 3 and decrease IT professionals to 90. Estimated savings: ($10,073,172/98) X 10 =$1,027,875. This does not include benefits and does not allow for higher director salaries as well.
The above savings total $3,003,976 based on salary savings alone. But benefits in the district are at least 60% of salary. So, add the $1,802,000 in benefit savings and the grand total is $4,806,361.
Now the ASD budget hole has been back filled. So, no need to override the governor’s veto, at least for the largest district in Alaska.
You can find the ASD 2025-26 budget here.
David Boyle is the education writer for Must Read Alaska.
As a former business owner I can attest that substandard pay yields substandard and unhappy employees. The marketplace shows high quality teachers leaving due to substandard compensation. You get what you pay for and lowering compensation further will continiue outcome decline
Are you aware of the pay scale for teachers in the Anchorage School District? The district budgets $110,000 for a teacher. And that is for 9 months of work. Do you have the data that show high quality teachers leave the profession due to low pay?
It’s not for 9 months David. It’s more like 180 days. That’s $611.00 per day. When I was in school the smart teachers capitalized on this 180 day a year job and took on other jobs or started their own businesses. A good bunch of teachers I know became very wealthy working side jobs and investing wisely. Saying 9 months a year is like saying a north slope worker working 2 & 2 is working a full year. The reality is they are working 6 months a year.
190 days is standard contract and does not account for the planning time or professional development required to maintain certification.
They did not work 8am to 5pm Monday thru Friday. They work August til May.
Yet our smaller districts keep losing staff to Anchorage because the pay is higher… make it make sense Frank.
A lot of smaller districts pay more than ASD, but it requires living in very small rural communities. People like a quality of life and opportunities to raise a family.
Pretty sure all these positions are administrative not classroom teachers. Not cutting wages, removing positions.
Oh please Frank…6 directors of HR!
Here you have 6 highly paid individuals, who neither teach not interact with students, but eat up a considerable chunk of the budget and that’s just one department. I bet if you go across all the admin you will find similar bloat. Would these funds not be better spent reducing the adjunct costs here and be able to pay teachers more? We do not have a funding problem Frank, we have an allocation problem.
Having had some dealings with the ASD this is their standard MO. They “consolidate” the people actually performing the work by cutting their hours or eliminating positions, only to then hire another administrator to tell them how they can work more “efficiently to get the extra workload done”…..and that Frank makes for unhappy employees.
The main Question to be asked here:Are they leaving because of so-called “standard compensation?” OR IS IT because they have been force to teach the sick ” DEI” theory seeing the children being destroyed, and not being able to help due to the administration forcing and being fired from their job.
Exactly kc. The other problem is the quality of kids these teachers are getting is piss poor, rotten entitled brats.
Well, there’s your solution. The kids don’t deserve an education.
How many of your kids were ever in Anchorage school district Frank?????
Oh that’s right ……ZERO.
You never paid your employees at R&M what they were worth Frank. That’s why so many left…
My wife has been a teacher for 10 years and makes just under $90k before benefits. How is that substandard pay?
The DEI Director does nothing to protect Jewish students.
Beautiful
This is the way
All I know is that a 60% failure rate is unacceptable. No more money for a failed institution!
Compare variances from previous budgets to annual audits and look at transfers between funds after actual salaries are converted from budgeted numbers which contain vacancy rates, etc.
The San Francisco Catholic schools have more students and and only a hand full of principals — one principal could handle several schools with no vice principal — it is being done elsewhere
Is this a typo? “ Human Resources has six directors! Total Salaries/benefits=$ 4,638,003.”
How can six directors in Human Resources be making over 4.6 million dollars? That would be $773,000.05 each. Other than that, good revealing article and ideas.
Elizabeth, I had the same impression, but I believe David meant that the HR department as a whole costs the taxpayer $4.6 million, as he later states if we cut 2 director positions it would result in savings of $350,000. (Which is still outrages as the extrapolated numbers for these 6 people costs us $1 million alone in that $4.6 million budget)
I did a bit more reading and the $4.6 million are personnel costs for 32 FTE of the HR department. The certified director position rings in at $164,614 and the 31 FTE non-certificated (which includes 5 directors) comes to $2,489,024. Employee benefits run at $1,989,365. ASD reduced the clerical staff by 3 from the 2025 budget (holding with my earlier comment). The total budget for HR with non-personnel expenditures is $4.737,936. It should be noted that the proposed budget does NOT include any expense for “Other Purchased Services”. Last year that category ran us $220,000.
Are we also choosing to ignore the gigantic capital projects department? 60-80 million annual budget and the vehicle to payoff architects and designers that fund the next bond debauchery and advertising cycle… every couple years…
2-4 needed to happen years ago…
It appears that what is truly needed is an honest straight-forward intelligent person to present an honest straight-forward budget that has the fatty bloat removed.
The author has put the spotlight on several items that beg for further investigation and resolution.
Instead of ‘begging’ or ‘demanding’, pull up your panties and grab your scissors and make this right!
Now, DOGE Kenai Peninsula Borough School District.
This is a great display of responsibility. If I had an employee that was unhappy, I would want them to leave. Then someone who is more committed to the purpose of education and not their own selfish reasons can take their place and improve themselves and students. No reason to keep them there for the wrong purpose.
We have too many lifetime whiners in education that are lining their pockets off the taxpayers and not producing. Their pay isn’t substandard; they get paid well. The problem is the leadership and admin that are overpaid for the work they do and no support to the classroom. Class sizes could shrink if we had less admin salaries. Taj Mahal schools can be simplified, and programs can be streamlined. Curriculum can stick to basics and special courses can be paid by parents if they want their child to attend. Keep It Simple Stupid!
This article is full of complete fabrication. It is laughable that he thinks that someone at ASD makes 417k. He also knows nothing about the IT department because he says they do not write software or code and they write software and code every day.
Great work, David.
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Then there’s ASD’s $65,000 per year state lobbyist, Jim Anderson, hired to represent ASD, –not parent/taxpayers, not pupils–, in “…all issues, legislation, and funding related to school districts, including: formula funding, transportation funding, school bond debt reimbursement, Pre-K funding, school construction, testing etc.”
(Alaska Lobbyist Directory)
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Condolences on your almost certain banishment from their Christmas-card list.
Dave, please check pages 102/103 to see that one FTE costs $414,117 in salary and at least $70,000 in benefits. I only report what the ASD provides in its official FY26 budget. Any more questions? You might just want to read the entire ASD FY26 budget like I did. There is a link in the above article. What kind of software does the IT department write? What percentage of the software the district uses does the IT department write? Isn’t most of the software the ASD uses COTS? I would appreciate you pointing out the other fabrications in the article as you say. BTW, in which ASD department are you employed? Thanks.
Dave did you actually LOOK at the budget?
You would be surprised to find on page 102 the heading “Middle School Education” with the listing under the proposed 2026 budget of $417,117 for “certificated salaries” (which btw was $156,000 just a few years ago). Then on page 103 “Middle School Education” staffing lists ONE FTE under the director tab and .5 for a clerical individual. The total budget for “Middle School Education” is listed as $616,498 which actually represents a 8.1% reduction from the 2025 budget.
Think about that for a moment.
You should stay in your lane and just put the fries in the bag.
Jacoby, I believe more citizens should become active in their local government, especially the school districts. How else are we to know what a school district is doing? Do you work for the ASD? Thanks.
I have to agree with much of what you wrote. There are way too many FTEs at the head shed.
Why do schools need mental health services that should fall under the purview of the parents and the medical community. Expecting funding for one time funded positions is idiotic. The district ignored the DEED recommendations. With number of students reducing it would seem that funding would also go down but again they seem to over fund the head shed.
Why do we have a DEI department? It’s a woke waste of money and if I recall, Trump made some comment about if you had DEI you weren’t getting any more money so I don’t think they should get the federal money because they insist on keeping this woke waste of money department
In number three, you mention assistant directors of communications, I personally think they only need one and that would save even more money.
What are these directors directing? What is their job? Why do we need them and why does human resources need more than one director?
As I said before mental health is not the schools job, it falls to the parents in the medical community and needs to go.
If the sour you stay for the Middle School director is true their salary should be cut by 3/4 and I’d love to know what they do that makes the district think they warrant such an outrageous salary.
Personally, I don’t think we need more than two IT directors one for elementary and one for secondary and as for IT personnel I think that three elementary schools could share one IT person which would cut the number middle schools and alternative schools could have one IT for every two schools and there should be one IT per high school and that would reduce that number to 41 and save it so our amount of money.
On a note regarding something that you did not address, they could consolidate schools and close the low capacity schools at the elementary level because there are many that are below capacity. They could also combine schools to make some K through three and others fourth through sixth at the elementary level, because personally I don’t think 6th graders should be in the middle schools.
I’m also sure there are many other ways to save money.
The trouble is the Anchorage School Board controls the purse – the Assembly only has the ability to approve or not approve the Anchorage School budget as submitted. You can’t make the School Board do anything, just make them feel uncomfortable (if that is possible) at wasting your money on bloated Anchorage school budget. Nice article, but only those that control the board, control the purse and choose whether to actually cut any FTEs or programs or any observed bloat/duplication. DOGE all you want, it is all hypothetical hyperbole and mental gymnastics.
Remember the bond issue to build a new Inlet View School? Well, I discovered during my review that Inlet View had about 235 students BEFORE the bond issue was put on the ballot. Once the bond issue passed o build a new school for Inlet View, the student population dropped to about 175. Question: Did the ASD not tell the truth and what happened to the phantom students?
Nice to see someone touching the Head Shed third rail with ASD. Why not have these ‘Admin’ folks come and do recess/lunch duty like they just mandated all elementary teachers take on – in addition to all the other tasks they add on a practically daily basis. Also, why not challenge any one of the people who think teachers have it easy to spend a day (let alone a school year) wrangling 28 to 30 kindergarteners and see how long they last??