The Anchorage Assembly is getting set to approve the school district's budget at its next meeting on Tuesday, March 25. The $743.4 million 2014-2015 budget -- worked on and approved by the Anchorage School District -- asks for $233.8 million from Anchorage property tax payers. The budget goes through an almost yearlong process of research, review, public comment, and votes by the school board and the Assembly before it is approved. Most of the money (about 60 percent) each year comes from the state of Alaska through the Base Student Allocation formula, which allocates money per pupil to districts statewide. But the state budget is not decided until the end of the legislative session -- April 20, weeks after the Anchorage School District budget has to be decided.
The process of determining how much money the district will have to spend each year is sometimes messy and almost always contentious. This year appears to be no different, and debate about the budget was on full display at a joint meeting of the Anchorage Assembly and the Anchorage School Board Friday at City Hall. The joint meetings are held each quarter, but none are as spirited as the one held in March of each year.
The Anchorage School District is facing a $23 million budget hole for next year and will be cutting hundreds of positions -- both support staff and teachers -- over the next few years to keep up with increasing budget shortfalls. The reasons for the financial problems are varied, but the biggest is the increase in the cost to the district of personnel and benefits. While salaries of school district employees (including teachers) have risen less than 1 percent since 2011, the price of providing medical benefits has skyrocketed by 15 percent each year -- almost three times the rate of inflation. Nearly flat funding from the state and a mandated cap on local property taxes have left the Anchorage School District -- like many throughout Alaska -- struggling to keep providing the same level of services and the same number of teachers in the classrooms that it used to.
"We have put a focus on keeping as many teachers in the classroom as we can," said Anchorage School Board member Kathleen Plunkett.
While the debate over how to cut $23 million from next year's school district budget has centered around costs savings, an advisory group added another bone of contention to the talks: school vouchers that would allow public money to be used to offset the cost of private education. It also supported full school choice -- allowing students to attend any school they choose regardless of where they live. The Anchorage Budget Advisory Commission made its presentation on the ways the school district could save money in the future. Chief among the suggestions: Allow school vouchers and school choice, and encourage local parents to send their kids to private schools.
The idea of allowing public money to be used for private schools has been long debated itself in the halls of Alaska's Capitol. This year, a bill that would have allowed school vouchers was pulled from consideration before it could be voted on. Supporters said they didn't believe the constitutional amendment could achieve the two-thirds majority approval it needed to proceed to a vote of the people.
Even though the amendment that would allow for school vouchers isn't going anywhere in Juneau, Budget Advisory Commission Chair Bob Griffin said his group decided to add the possibility because both the Anchorage Assembly and the Anchorage School Board often pass non-binding resolutions about pending state laws and bills.
"We wanted to bring it up as information to the members," Griffin said.
Griffin presented a report from the Friedman Foundation that supports school vouchers. The report claims the Anchorage School District would save money and be better able to educate the students who might remain in public school if their private school counterparts were allowed to use public money for tuition. But those assertions, and the numbers on which they are based, are a source of disagreement between the Anchorage School Board and the Budget Advisory Commission. The addition of school choice and school vouchers to the list of recommended ASD savings plans was not well-accepted by some on the Assembly, and most on the school board.
"I don't want a sales job (over planned cuts to the budget) from the school district, and I don't want a hack job from the Budget Advisory Commission," Anchorage School Board member Pat Higgins said.
The Anchorage Assembly will vote on the proposed 2014-2015 Anchorage School District budget at its meeting on Tuesday, March 25, which begins at 5 p.m.