The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District walked back cuts it had previously made to several staff positions last week after the Alaska Legislature approved $175 million in one-time funding for schools. However, while the single-serve financing offers a lifeline to a district that was facing a $13.7 million deficit going into the next school year, it is far from a permanent solution.
It’s all one-time funding. So, everything we’re receiving is for this year. Always thankful for that, but it puts us back in that position of not having predictable funding,” said KPBSD Superintendent Clayton Holland. “So, we’ll have to go through that cycle again and build off of not having anything because we have to present a balanced budget. And then [the district] will go through this again unless there’s a change next year in how it’s approached and if there’s a more permanent fix to the base student allocation.”
The district will see approximately $11 million in one-time funding this year after the House and Senate passed a last-gasp budget in the eleventh hour of the most recent legislative session. As a result, the school board partially reversed a previous decision to institute the worst-case of three different budget cut scenarios it first presented to the borough assembly in April. In the three scenarios, the first option was based on a $680 increase to the base student allocation (BSA), the second on a $340 increase, and the third on a $0 increase.
“The school board gave us the direction to move forward with Scenario Three, which reinstates all the cuts that we had, but to hold back on a little bit of it until the governor does sign off or at least doesn’t veto any of that budget,” said Holland.
While the district did leave all of the non-human elements of Scenario Three (worst-case), the $11 million of state funding provided a means to reinstate several jobs that were cut in Scenario One.
In the short term, the pool managers, theater techs, six elementary school counselors, and seven teaching jobs are safe, but all staff filling those positions are now on a time clock counting down until the 2025 school year. Whether or not a permanent change to education funding in Alaska comes through will again be in the hands of the Alaska Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
