The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly will fund the school district to the cap at $48,238, 432.
Assembly Member Blaine Gilman proposed funding the school district to the cap with a $2.2 million addition, the equivalent of what the governor cut in one time funding this year.
Gilman: “Funding education is the most conservative thing we can do on the assembly and studies demonstrate that public education is what will pull people out of poverty and make people productive members of our society.”
District Superintendent Sean Dusek…
Dusek: “As the mayor put it, it kind of softened our move to the cliff of making massive cuts. Hopefully if we can extend our fund balance an additional year or two, hopefully that can coincide with better oil prices and better funding from the state as we keep moving forward.”
Dusek said the district is continuing in deficit spending into next year, primarily due to healthcare expenses rising.
Dusek: “Our healthcare fund balance is going to be pretty much gone after this year, we’d done that in a three year plan and this is the last year of our three year plan. So we will be starting out next year close to three million just in healthcare spending as a deficit. That doesn’t include any other increases like with utilities or personnel costs, those types of things.”
The $48.2 million allocation by the assembly is based off the budget agreed on by the House of Representatives; if the Senate decreases that budget the borough’s allocation will be lowered.