SITKA, ALASKA
The school board added money to the revenue side of its budget Tuesday night, shrinking the deficit from $1.3 million to about $350,000.
Some numbers in the equation are pretty solid – like the $500,000 it plans to move out of savings. Other things depend on a lot of factors the district can’t control.
For example: The district is counting on 10 more students than originally thought, which means roughly $85,000 in additional revenue. One more intensive needs student would mean an additional $100,000. And it’s counting on the legislature to boost funding for career and technical education – that’d be worth roughly $60,000.
But the board has put most of its chips on the city. The Secure Rural Schools and Communities Act will send about $1.4 million from Washington, D.C., to the City of Sitka. That money is usually split 50-50 between the city and the schools. Instead of half, the district plans this year to ask for 75 percent. That would mean an additional $295,000.
The request will come in a year when the schools are expected to take a 2 percent cut in the city’s annual contribution. All told, the city is set to give about $5 million to the schools this year, which is below the maximum cap the city can contribute.
“Years ago the city always funded to the cap,” said Lon Garrison, president of the school board. “And they had a 3 percent increase. Times are different now.”
City finance director Dave Wolff says next year’s city budget is a work in progress. Assembly member Thor Christianson has attempted to start a conversation among city officials and among the Assembly about what the city will give to the schools next year. But Mayor Cheryl Westover says that conversation should wait until the city is in its budget process in earnest.
Garrison, on the school board, says he understands the city’s situation.
“We’re not sticking our heads in the sand saying that we don’t understand there is a lot of pressure and a lot of demands,” he said. “They have a very diverse group of demands to meet. What we’re doing is, we’re just advocating that this is what it’s going to take to educate the kids in our community, and we think that deserves some priority.”
There also are two bills in the legislature that could raise state funding by about $100 per student. Garrison says that has a good chance of happening, but the current Sitka Schools budget does not count on its passage.
While the district looks for places to cut, it’s also adding some expenses to the budget: about $75,000 in additional technology funding. Enhancing the district’s technology offerings is one of the board’s top goals. It plans to sock away about $75,000 every year in order to replace the current technology when it becomes obsolete. Board members say they’ve heard from members of the community expressing concern about spending money there at a time when cuts are being made elsewhere.
But Garrison says it’s important to keep the goal on track, in the same way people save for a house or other major expense they’re going to have in the future.
“Pay now, or you really pay later,” he said. “And when you pay later, it’s not just money, it’s that you’ve done a disservice to educating children.”
Let’s back up again and look at that big picture. The deficit was $1.3 million, and now it’s about $350,000. That adjustment means the budget now requires less surgery than before, but it’s still an operation that will result in making some serious cuts. Including from personnel.
“It’s never been easy,” he said. “But it’s been easier in the past because we’ve had some retirements we could fall back on and that was our attrition. Right now it doesn’t look like we have that in the works, which means it’s positions, whether it’s teaching positions, classified staff or whatever, it’s a reduction in force. And that is disturbing to me.”
Schools Superintendent Steve Bradshaw says the district is offering a $10,000 buyout to teachers who have been in the district at least 10 years, and who are eligible for retirement in the state of Alaska. An offer of $7,500 per person has been made to members of the union representing the district’s paraprofessionals and secretaries.
Bradshaw says offering an incentive for staff to retire is not ideal – you can lose good, experienced teachers. But, he adds, laying off employees is the last resort.
“The last thing you want to do is have to lay off a young teacher that’s moved up here, that’s doing an excellent job for the district,” Bradshaw said.
The district wants to get its budget to the city by the end of the month, and then the Sitka Assembly has 30 days to decide how much money the city will send to the schools. Individual, non-tenured teachers must be notified 10 days before the end of the school year whether they’ll have a job in the fall.
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