Officials with the Northwest Arctic Borough School District are cutting as many costs as they can to close a projected $14 million budget gap for next school year. The decisions are hard.
District officials first proposed eliminating more than a dozen teaching and administrative positions and slashing travel and professional development for staff. They also decided to forgo new software and supplies.
But that only plugged part of the budget gap.
“No one wants anything to be cut,” said Megan Williams, director of administrative services for the district.
She said as a money-saving measure, the school board offered incentives to employees who chose to opt out of their district-sponsored insurance plans.
The district also conducted a regional survey and held several community forums to try to figure out how else to shave down the budget.
In the latest round of cuts, the school board is considering eliminating middle school sports, seconds for meals, additional curriculum supplies and staff work days. They are also considering cutting almost all of the district’s career and technical educators.
Those cuts would have a huge impact, said Eva Wortman, a teacher in Buckland.
“Not only are we helping employees, folks that are from our village that actually live here, we are also giving the kids some more opportunities,” Wortman said. “I don't know what the purpose of taking away from the kids is. We want kids to have better test scores, you want kids to be more successful in life, but then you take away the things that they need to have better test scores and to have better life opportunities.”
And even after those proposed budget cuts, district officials say they would still face a roughly $9 million budget deficit.
School Board President Margaret Hansen said the district has been meeting with the governor and legislature to lobby and look for more sources of revenue.
“Believe me, we don't want to take anything away from our children,” said Hansen. “The budget that we've been given every year has increased, but the revenue from the state government has stayed the same.”
Legislation that would have permanently increased the so-called base student allocation — the per-student figure in the state’s education funding formula — by $680 was vetoed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in March. A veto override failed by one vote. District 40 Representative Thomas Baker of Kotzebue was the only lawmaker from the Bush Caucus to support the governor's veto.
The measure, if approved, would have been the first significant increase to the state’s school funding formula since 2016.
There are still two ways education can be funded in the legislature: through a one-time $175 million in the operating budget or by a separate House bill that could raise the base student allocation by that additional $680 per student.
Hansen said that's still not enough, especially in rural Alaska, and an increase of more than $2000 per student is needed.
Northwest Arctic Borough Assembly member Reid Magdanz agrees.
“When you look at their revenues and expenditures, the state foundation formula doesn't even cover the salaries and benefits of the school district or put aside utility, when you put aside contracts, put aside travel, put aside student activities,” Magdanz said. “The State Foundation formula doesn’t even fund the staff that are in the district right now.”
The borough typically supports the school district. However, facing budget cuts of its own this year, the borough opted to wait to see if the district will receive an increase in state funding before committing to a contribution.
The district did secure a $1.5 million contribution from NANA Regional Corporation. That still leaves around $5 million needed to balance their budget. The district plans to pull from their general fund balance, a reserve typically used for emergency and large maintenance projects.
District Superintendent Terri Walker said that money could have been used to help fund projects in the region’s smaller schools – renovations to the Deering school building, which freezes on one side; to Kivalina, whose power system was damaged after a recent fire; to Noatak, which has a leak in its water line that causes flooding in the summer; and to Selawik, which badly needs a fire alert system.
“We just keep getting things like emergencies like that, that keep coming at us, you know, that we have to continuously pour out money to fix,” Walker said. “And you will have to figure out how we're going to have some extra money on hand for emergencies.”
The school board passed its budget for next school year on Tuesday. A representative from the board said if the district does not receive more funding from the state or borough, further reductions will be needed.
