By WIN GRUENING
During a Juneau City and Borough Assembly Finance Committee meeting on Feb. 7, opinions about how to handle a sizable deficit in the Juneau School District budget ran the gamut.
The deficit is the result of a catastrophic enrollment loss (1,500 student drop since 1999), accounting errors, and decisions by previous school administrators and past Board of Education leadership. Some Assembly members want to blame the current board, arguing that Juneau School District deficits are a problem primarily of their own making and financial assistance should be mostly in the form of a loan that must be paid back.
Several Assembly members, however, took the view that, while the school district must consider cuts and consolidations, their financial situation is a community issue that cannot be ignored, and the Assembly’s role should be to assist them in resolving it.
Ultimately, the Finance Committee voted to give the district more help than they requested, around $8 million to zero out their current deficit ($4 million as a loan with the balance in cash) and another $1.65 million towards the Fiscal Year 2025 deficit. The $4 million zero-interest loan would be paid back in three equal installments beginning in Fiscal Year 2026.
The Juneau Assembly directed the manager to draft three ordinances to formalize their action in time to have them introduced at the regular Assembly meeting on or before Feb. 26 and public testimony on March 4.
All these actions would be subject to adjustment depending on public testimony and forthcoming updated enrollment projections, possible cuts and consolidations, as well as any increase in the Base Student Allocation, known as the BSA, which determines state funding to the district.
Some in the community will bemoan this action as a “giveaway” or argue details about the amount or structure of the grants and loans. However, there is no viable way of balancing this year’s budget without Assembly assistance.
The Juneau School Board will now turn its attention to changes needed going forward to achieve a balanced budget and how that can be accomplished with minimal negative impact on student educational outcomes. The community should accept the fact that these changes will be extremely difficult for all concerned but there is simply no choice – since by law, the school district must produce a balanced budget. To accomplish this, the city/borough loans must be repaid, and facilities and programs will need to be reduced.
Not to be forgotten are past enrollment projections that forecast the district losing another 1,200 students by 2032. Those numbers should be front and center in both Juneau’s school district and assembly decision-making.
Several mentions were made during the Finance Committee meeting of increasing Juneau’s property tax millage rate to help offset the hit to the municipal budget.
This would be a mistake and, in any case, unnecessary.
Juneau residents are still reeling from recent unprecedented increases in property taxes, both residential and commercial. Increasing property taxes would further exacerbate this situation, hurt the economy, and make Juneau less attractive and less affordable.
For all the handwringing from city leaders about JSD’s “structural deficit,” more attention should be paid to the city’s “structural surplus.”
Under the current CBJ property tax millage regime, the city has continued to over-collect property taxes and accumulate inordinate surpluses despite its best effort to fritter them away on projects that voters have rejected.
Currently, the city has over $140 million in discretionary funding sources available to it:
- $31.0 million – general fund balance
- $19.0 million – “rainy day fund”
- $16.5 million – new city office CIP
- $ 5.0 million – New JACC/civic center CIP
- $70.0 million – unused bond capacity
Of course, other needs compete for these funds, so the school district shouldn’t get a pass, but any one of those sources are available to assist schools with no immediate requirement to raise taxes.
Furthermore, the city bears a good measure of responsibility for the lack of economic development that has contributed to Juneau’s stagnant population and the outmigration of young people that is directly tied to lower student enrollment in the school district.
Moving forward, Assembly members can do better by avoiding the “blame game,” viewing school funding challenges as a shared responsibility, and asking themselves why economic development efforts have fallen short.
After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.
How is the district going to incur debt without a vote of the people?
I’d Take Win’s opinion far more seriously if he were to ever acknowledge that CBJ has also frittered away 15 million and counting on a Gondola for Eaglecrest that appears to have been a sweetheart deal between the city and Goldbelt from inception. That said, the only real option to get the JSD budget in line has got to include closing one of the high schools and off loading the property and all of the associated maintenance and at least a third of the education staff.
Juneau Libs being what they are, I’d give good odds that there will never be any serious action taken to downsize the JSD Budget.
Bob, the city’s investment so far, is slightly over $3 million for the purchase price and shipping. Goldbelt’s private investment of $10 million is expected to be adequate to complete the construction and installation of the gondola in time to be open for the 2025-26 ski season and the 2026 summer tourist season.
Win: Truth is that CBJ bought a pig in a poke… 2 million for the original purchase, 1.1 Million for shipping and now and additional 1.9 million for ‘parts’ and all we have is a stack of machinery laying on the ground.
The catch is that its going to cost the better part of another 8 to 9 million to get the thing set up in test run condition….Then of course, there will be another million or so in modifications and fixes before it might be usable.
The last public reporting I have seen was that Goldbelt was to pay CBJ a lump sum of 10 million in July 2023 in return for all summer revenues for 25 years….There has been NO reporting that this payment has ever actually occurred and if you ask me this project is rapidly headed the same direction as the fabled golf course deal that CBJ and Kake Tribal cooked up.
Parents have a right to teach children their own philosophical and/or spiritual path. Our educational and legal system should recognize this and not subject children to any form of intense indoctrination or brainwashing by the far-left progressive educators in our public schools. Otherwise, any reasonable parents will seek for a traditional and patriotic schooling for their children, and, therefore, the enrollment in the public schools will continue to decline. The declining enrollment is the reason, and only reason, for the budget shortfall in Juneau and across the entire state of Alaska. I hope woke teachers and administrators clearly understand this movement against the woke ideology. And if they don’t, then, eventually, they will lose their jobs.
Alex you are spot-on and anti-christian leftist educators at some point may realize that stuffing wokeness down our children’s throats has consequences–now and in the future. I do not recommend government schools to parents if they have other options for their children.
You have no idea.
It is in part why we home educated. Home education is a huge blessing in today’s insane world. Better, and focused, education, also better prepared for college. At our daughter’s graduation for her bachelors degree, her advisor actually pulled me aside afterward and told me his best students over past few years had been homeschooled. This was a state college. Public school can indeed be successful but parent commitment and involvement is key. We pay far too much for public education given the outcome. Money should follow the student with completion, and expectation, in the mix.
Indeed, success at school begins at home.
The current brainfart (certainly not a brain trust) of our “leaders” does not have the vision, will, or basic intelligence to resolve this issue. Sadly, it’s potentially easily solved IF the Faux Junta had the will and vision to do it.
They don’t.
1. Stop doing everything possible to make families leave, or discourage people from having kids. Damn near every policy they enact is driving people out of CBJ at a sprint. Stop spending money we don’t have, especially on things like JACC and the drag show of the week. Stop driving out businesses. Endless property tax increases. Deal with the homeless/open drug use problems. Stop doing exactly what we just told you NOT to do. Affordable realistic housing. And so much more.
2. Brutal consolation of our public education system. 1 high school, 1 middle school, 2 elementary schools.
Sell the empty properties.
3. Focus on actual education instead of the latest DEI or social fad.
Until we create a community people want to raise families in, the slide will just get worse.
Smart parents are sickened by what is now considered an education! Schools have taken away parental control of their own children and brazenly telling them that the schools know what is best for their children. Parents need to speak up, make some noise!!! There needs to be outrage!!!
Spend your savings first then cut the buget.
Juneau is dead trying to resuscitate it back to life is a shoeless as trying to bring back a deceased person to life after they died.
Anchorage is Next… its life is where Juneau was at in 2001 still alive but surviving on life support measures. Anchorage is dying as a once booming exciting community brimming with life. The churches here are being so slow. It’s painful to watch. Its grieving.
Dumb autocorrect. Doesn’t it know how not to interrupt when I’m talking!!?
Don’t worry Win, Juneau will vote to import 10,000 illegal aliens to keep school funding where the teacher’s union wants it to be… and then some. Every blue city in the country is doing it.
Am I the only person that has noticed that while Juneau is a landlocked community of about 33,000 it has a ‘free stuff’ industrial complex that covers nearly an entire city block? Or that there are more than a 1000 units of housing that are Federally subsidized in one way or another? And that Federally funded health care clinics whose campus sprawls over more than a city block and is rapidly expanding are serving more than a third of the community residents?
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