Legislators in the Alaska Senate say they want to cut a “nickel” from state education funds, but losing that change could decimate the Juneau School District’s budget.
After passing a preliminary budget Tuesday, the JSD Board of Education sits on pins and needles awaiting the outcome of a proposed 5 percent cut to the Department of Education’s budget.
The cuts could send “at least three” Alaska school districts into bankruptcy, and though JSD won’t be one of them, the budget proposal would “wipe us out,” according to Superintendent Dr. Mark Miller.
“Some people don’t understand that we are budgeted within one-half of one percent of every dollar we get,” Miller told the Empire after Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting at Thunder Mountain High School. “So a 5 percent cut wipes us out. There’s no other way to say it.”
In preparation for the cuts, some state districts are floating the idea of getting rid of high school sports entirely.
It’s not a popular idea, but one Miller said he can’t see working around should districts have to choose between paying the bills or fielding athletes.
“How can you cut 22 teachers and then send your football team to North Pole?” Miller said. “Ethically, how do you do that?”
The Senate Majority has proposed cutting 5 percent from the state’s biggest agencies, including education. The cuts are far from final as the Senate will have to reach a compromise with the House and Gov. Bill Walker, both of which have proposed keeping education funding at status quo.
A final budget compromise could come as late as June or July, giving the district only a few summer weeks to rework their budget before doors open for the 2017-2018 school year.
A look at the budget
The JSD Board of Education approved their $87,267,000 budget Tuesday. It will next land on the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly’s desk, where it will likely be approved.
That may seem like a lot of money, with wiggle room to spare 5 percent, but when you scrutinize the numbers, a less-than-rosy picture emerges.
The money the school district actually has to work with, it’s “operating funds,” total about $72,020,000, according to JSD’s David Means. The money above that $72 million includes grant money and other funds the district doesn’t directly control.
Providing just a minimum level of services to students, what the district calls “basic operating expenses” — staffing classrooms, purchasing insurance and heating schools — costs the district about $63.5 million.
The 5 percent proposed cut pencils out to $3,246,000 of JSD’s budget, Means said. That would come from the less than $10 million the district spends to provide for more than adult supervision and well-lighted classrooms.
In other words, nearly everything would be on the chopping block should the Alaska Senate get their way.
The district has already prioritized its expenses should they need to revisit the budget this summer, but that doesn’t mean they’ll simply lop the lowest line items off the list. Should any revenue changes occur, the district has the option of reworking the list.
At the bottom of that list are high school sports traveling, but the cuts could come from somewhere in the middle, where line items like drug testing, further teacher-student ratio reductions, and AVID — a popular post-secondary readiness program — reside.
The School District budget is due to the city Assembly on March 31. After that, the Assembly has 30 days to inform the district how much they intend to appropriate to the budget.
JSD predicts the total enrollment for the 2017-2018 school year to be 4,801 students, an increase of 17 from October 2016.
• Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com or 523-2228.
