The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District has requested funding from the borough that Mayor Charlie Pierce, and some members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, have deemed to be too lofty. They discussed the details of the funding during the assembly’s Tuesday night meeting.
The school board is requesting $53.4 million from the borough for Fiscal Year 2022, but the borough is countering with around a $43 million proposal.
KPBSD Superintendent John O’Brien: “Even though we were extremely disappointed with the Mayor’s and the Chief of Staff’s numbers for what they are proposing from the administration, in terms of what Fiscal Year 2022 funding will be for the borough, and even though we were disappointed with the response from administration on our bond projects and all of the major maintenance issues that needed to occur, we look forward to working directly with you, the borough assembly, to best meet the needs of the children and the communities of this borough with an education budget and with taking care of our buildings”
Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce responded by saying that he may be the bearer of bad news, but that fiscal responsibility is paramount: “There’s a lot of uncertainty in our borough and I’ve said it before. I know I’m the bearer of bad news. You can call me Mr. Negative and Mr. I Don’t Love This and I Don’t Love That. I love this borough. I’ve lived here a long time. I’m a professional. I understand budgets. I understand how to safeguard things. There’s a reason that we had $25, $26, $28 million in the bank [in previous years] and I’m going to take a little bit of credit for it. I’m gonna take some credit for the savings that we’ve had around here because we have been very frugal with our dollars.”
Responses from the Assembly Members were mixed, with Willy Dunn suggesting that the budget could be better suited to meet the school district’s needs, if not for inconsistencies in the Mayor’s financial planning. Richard Derkevorkian, alternatively, proposed that such a high request from the school district is unreasonable considering other districts in the state spend less per-student, even while offering in-school classes during a period when KPBSD schools were closed due to COVID-19 mitigation.
