The Anchorage School Board on Tuesday passed a revised budget that relies on a yet-to-be-finalized funding increase from the state, aiming to save staff and programs that were set for cuts.
However, multiple school board members cautioned that even if the funding comes through as currently proposed, Anchorage schools will still face reductions, both this school year and next.
“It does seem like there will be more funds coming from Juneau, and so I think to that degree it’s not unreasonable for the board to make that assumption and stop some of the worst of the damage,” board member Andy Holleman said ahead of the vote. But, Holleman added, “this doesn’t fully restore things by any means.”
The board passed the revised budget unanimously. Member Dave Donley was an excused absence from the meeting, due to a hospitalization.
The Alaska Legislature last month passed a bill that would increase the Base Student Allocation, the state’s per-student funding formula, by $700. School districts across the state say the increase is urgently needed after a decade of virtually flat funding, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy has criticized — and vetoed — past legislation because it does not also include education policies he has proposed.
Dunleavy has yet to sign or veto House Bill 57. Regardless, lawmakers have said they believe they have the votes to override a veto.
In a May 6 memo outlining the proposal, the Anchorage School Board members who proposed the amended budget said it was crafted “in response to the Legislature’s bipartisan passage of House Bill 57 and with acute awareness of the distress that the scale of ASD’s FY26 staffing displacement process and programmatic reductions have wrought on students, families, educators, and the community at large.”
The revision increases the district’s proposed operating budget from $594.6 million to $634.5 million. It assumes a $560 increase to the BSA — a lower number than is included in the legislation currently on the table, but an amount school board members noted the governor has indicated he can support.
Still, board member Margo Bellamy on Tuesday repeatedly characterized passing the revised budget before HB57 becomes law as a “calculated risk.”
Bellamy likened it to “me not having any income, and writing a check, hoping that it pays for my mortgage, and it depends on so many other things — if I get a job, if someone helps me, whatever.”
“I’m not comfortable with it, but it is necessary,” she said.
-Board member Kelly Lessens at the meeting outlined sweeping changes the revised budget makes possible, including allowing the school district to increase the pupil-teacher ratio by one student rather than four, making it possible it to reverse a majority of the cuts to staff positions, avoiding layoffs and many displacements.
More than 200 teacher positions would be restored under the revised budget, the school district said in a statement. In an email to staff Wednesday, the district outlined next steps for employees who were being laid off or moved to a different positions in the district, saying school principals would soon let them know which positions they can restore.
“Thank you for your resilience during this time of uncertainty,” the district email said.
Lessens at the meeting added that the revised budget also reverses cuts to middle school sports and certain high school sports programs; elementary paraprofessional positions; the IGNITE program; librarians; nurses; elementary language immersion programs; elementary and secondary summer school programs; and Battle of the Books. It also provides more funding to charter schools and correspondence students, among other changes, she said.
However, Lessens still characterized the funding increase the amended budget relies on as “modest.”
About $23 million in cuts remain in the budget for the upcoming school year, she said.
“It’s not perfect. Principals are still tasked with making unenviable decisions,” Lessens said. “This is not a magic wand by any stretch of the imagination.”
The school board’s memo notes that even if the currently proposed $700 BSA increase becomes law, it “would not address the full $1,808 inflationary gap that has grown between FY11 and the present.”
Board member Pat Higgins cautioned ahead of the vote that the budget also relies on reserves.
“I … want to be completely honest: Unless the Legislature and the governor decide that their obligation is to fund adequately public education, we’re going to do this again next year,” Higgins said.
[This story has been updated to note that member Dave Donley was excused absent from the meeting due to a hospitalization.]
