Monday afternoon the Kenai Peninsula Borough School Board met to address the looming budget deficit, which is projected to be around 6 million dollars.
Board President Joe Arness addressed the fiscal cliff the School Board faces.
Arness: “For the last three years we have used fund balance to balance our budget. Fund balance is a finite amount of money. Each year we’re taking money out of our savings account to balance our budget. The looming cliff is, if we use up the last of that fund balance, the following year to try and continue to operate, it’s going to cost us more than we can recover.”
The solution for making up the budgets shortfall has been to take the needed amount from fund balances. This temporary budget patch won’t be an option in the near future if the current status quo remains.
Staff costs make up 85% of the school board’s budget, we asked if cutting teachers is a necessary option.
Arness: “All of our staffing for teachers and support staff is done by formulas. What we would do is make an adjustment to those formulas, which would mean that there would be more students in the average classroom, maybe a few more square feet for a custodian to take care of, or a little bit less secretarial time in a school. Those kind of adjustments.”
Nothing has been set in stone yet, the budget is scheduled to be finalized April 6th.