Assembly members (l to r) Matt Hunter, Richard Wein, and Steven Eisenbeisz hear the concerns of School Board members (l to r) Jen McNichol, Elias Erickson, Dionne Brady-Howard, and Eric Van Cise. Assembly members Ben Miyasato, Aaron Bean, and Bob Potrzuski also attended. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)
The Sitka School Board has opened its 2018 budget-building process over $2 million in the hole.
The board and the Sitka Assembly met in a work session this week/last week (1-17-18) in the high school library to take a preliminary look at the numbers.
The group expressed real concern about making ends meet — in both the schools and the city — next year.
The Sitka School Board will hold a staff budget hearing at 3:45 p.m. Wednesday, January 31, at Keet Gooshi Heen. The next community budget hearing for schools will be 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 28, in the Sitka High School Library.
The Sitka School District typically opens its budget cycle with a big deficit — even one as large as $2 million. But in the past there has always been a deep pocket to save the day. Once that may have been the federal government’s Secure Rural Schools program — but it’s been gone since 2016. The city in 2015 stepped up with $1 million in cash to cover a district shortfall, but that likely won’t be the case again in the coming year, according to assembly member Steven Eisenbeisz.
“It’s amazing. Your budget looks exactly like ours: cuts from the state, and cuts from outside sources are putting us in this crunch we’re in now.”
The “crunch” is a deficit of $3-4 million in the city’s budget, said Mayor Matt Hunter. Combined with $100 million in deferred maintenance on municipal infrastructure, like the water, sewer, and electrical utilities, the harbors, the police and fire departments, and the city-owned Sitka Community Hospital.
The city does contribute significantly to the schools — $6.1 million, about 30-percent of the district budget. The state picks up most of the rest of the $20 million it takes to run the Sitka school system. So why is the district coming up short?
The problem is that the government contribution to schools is staying flat — or even shrinking — as school enrollment declines (1,244 estimated in Sitka Schools next year, down from 1,253 this year), and expenses are always on the rise. Especially union-negotiated salaries, health insurance premiums, and energy costs.
If the district were to try and make up the deficit in salaries alone, the results would be staggering. Assembly member Bob Potrzuski spent most of his career teaching Social Studies at Sitka High.
“Just doing rough math in my head. To simply cut staff, that would be between 20-30 teachers?”
Although both bodies are elected by the public, the school board doesn’t have any authority to levy taxes. The assembly does, but it’s reluctant to use it without approval from voters. Many communities in the country fund local schools with property taxes. Sitka does the same, at a tax rate of six-tenths of one-percent (.006) — commonly called “6 mils.”
During the era of big oil, Sitka voters amended the city charter and capped their tax rate at 6 mils, so the assembly couldn’t nudge that up even if they wanted to. A Citizen’s Task Force in 2016 reexamined the tax cap and concluded that what was a great idea in 1990 was actually detrimental to budgeting now. But voters that fall wouldn’t budge, nor would they in 2011 or 2010, when half-mil hikes were on the ballot.
School board member Dionne Brady-Howard thought that would be the case again, unless the district and city took steps to educate voters.
“You know I think rather than just waiting until we put up a mill increase before them on the ballot, or a budget cut on our part, that we kind of need to think bigger picture, more proactive, and try to educate more of our electorate about where we really are. Because all people see is: It’s already expensive to live here. Don’t tax me more.”
Not everyone was optimistic about bringing voters up to speed sufficiently to pass a property tax increase. Board member Eric Van Cise thought letting schools suffer would be a deal-breaker for Sitkans who may already be “one check away from catastrophe.”
“What keeps people in this town, and why they work 2 or 3 jobs, is the schools, and also the community.”
Assembly member Bob Potrzuski, however, cautioned that there should be balance.
“Do we get into a situation where the schools are great, but the sewers don’t work? Nobody’s going to want to live in a house where the sewer’s backed up because the city can’t afford to fix the infrastructure.”
Assembly member Richard Wein was also not in the optimists’ camp. He wanted to know what the contingency plan was if the budget gap could not be closed. Potrzuski hinted that the assembly was planning to explore a couple of possible funding measures, but he wouldn’t disclose them. Assembly member Aaron Bean encouraged everyone to revisit the raw fish tax, to see if there wasn’t revenue potential there.
Superintendent Mary Wegner argued for innovation — and for continued investment in the schools. She made a strong point using the combined 13 members of the school board and assembly.
“I look around the table here, there’s eight of you who went through our school system. And here you are making decisions about this community — that is significant. That doesn’t happen everywhere. It is the fact that what we put into every student is going to make a difference to the future of Sitka. Everybody’s in a tight situation — what can we do that’s creative?”
School board president Jen McNichol thanked everyone for their “frank and civil” discussion. “Shockingly, we did not solve any financial issues,” she said, tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless, she encouraged everyone to continue participating in the many budget meetings ahead.
