By Jake Dye

Special to the Homer Independent Press


Though it wasn’t on the agenda and isn’t a topic likely to see action for several months, discussion on school funding dominated Tuesday’s meeting of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly.

Calls to fund the local school district to the maximum allowable amount — as well as opposing pleas to refrain from unsustainable increases to school funding — filled both of the assembly’s open public testimony slots. They were preceded by an update to the borough from Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Superintendent Clayton Holland, who painted a grim picture in describing budget plans for the coming year.

Under the district’s current budget proposal, advanced earlier this month and planned for finalization in April, four schools would close — Seward Middle School, Sterling Elementary School, Tustumena Elementary School and River City Academy. The plan would also slash staff for a variety of programs, eliminate most of the district’s library staff and close all of the district’s pools, among other things.

That budget assumes flat funding from the borough, but as of right now that’s not the amount on the table. Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche wants to spend roughly $59 million for schools, around $3 million less than last year. If the assembly ultimately agrees, that would require even more cuts than the district is now looking at.

Last year, Micciche pushed for a similar figure, but the borough assembly voted to override his proposal and provide funding to the school district to the maximum allowable amount — a total derived from a calculation based on property tax value. 

This year, the borough is working with new numbers. Owing to rapid increases in property values, the new maximum allowable amount is nearly $69 million, more than $9 million greater than the mayor’s proposal and enough to cover the district’s entire status quo budget — theoretically eliminating the need for school closures or cuts to pools and libraries. 

Micciche has said that total would be unsustainable for the borough. Nor is the school district campaigning for that level of funding — they’re budgeting for an increase above the mayor’s proposal, but only to the level of funding from last year.

The school district isn’t required to finalize its budget proposal until next month, and the assembly will not begin working on its budget — or finalizing the amount of money it gives to the local district — until at least May. Last year, final action on school funding wasn’t until June. 

Though school district leadership are hoping for an increase in funding only to last year’s total, it was a familiar call to “fund to the cap” that was voiced by parents and staff on Tuesday. They spoke for pools that are expected to close under the current proposal and schools that are planned to go away. 

Heidi Stokes, principal of Chapman School in Anchor Point, asked the borough assembly to revamp the borough sales tax, which is entirely directed towards schools. 

Danielle Chihuly, of Kasilof, said that seeing Tustumena Elementary closed “leaves rural taxpayers feeling like we pay borough taxes without fair support or representation economically.”

“Our children should not have to suffer the consequences of the borough budget shortfall,” she said. “I’d rather pay higher taxes through fair and equitable assessments than let them face the fallout.”

Marnie and Greg Olcott, of Sterling, both took the opposite tack, calling on the borough to maintain its constraints on spending and not providing an increase to school funding.

The formula for state education funding, Micciche said, is “broken.” He pointed Tuesday to the increase in property tax assessments forcing a shift of the burden of supporting schools from the state to the borough. But, he said, sustainable school funding will result in a district with fewer opportunities — the logical outcome of an aging population with fewer kids in schools.

“You can’t keep open 44 schools when you’re missing 3,600 kids,” he said. “Give a new school a chance, because a full school with all the staff and the art, the music and services is much better than a school that has echoes going down a very empty hallway.”

The district’s proposed budget also assumes state funding will be the same as last year. Though the Alaska Legislature secured a significant, permanent increase in per-student funding last year, district leadership says that amount has failed to keep pace with inflation. Two bills to increase state funding were introduced this month, but the road to passage is long. Last year’s increase was hard-won only after two high-stakes votes to override vetoes from Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Agenda activities

In other action, and without significant discussion, the assembly accepted grant funding for the Western Emergency Service Area, authorized the sale of some properties obtained by the borough through tax foreclosures, authorized a lease with the City of Seward for a public outdoor shooting range and renewed a lease to Chugach Electric Association for communications infrastructure in Cooper Landing.

A pair of resolutions adopted via the consent agenda call on the Alaska Legislature to pass legislation that would address some of the challenges with school funding raised by Micciche and others. 

The first, if made law, would hold the property assessments from the state to the current year’s level for three years, with the idea stated in the resolution being to use that time to “work toward a collaborative long-term solution on this issue.” The second would remove a state requirement that any school closed remain so for seven years — this year’s closure of Seward Middle, for example, cannot be reversed under current law until at least 2034.

As of Wednesday, no bill was introduced in either body of the state legislature that would enact those changes.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly will next meet on April 7. A recording of this week’s meeting, agendas and other documents can be found at kpb.legistar.com.