The Juneau School District has cleared the major hurdle in its budget process, as the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly Finance Committee approved the district’s budget at Wednesday night’s special Assembly meeting. Now, the district and the city wait to see what the state has in store.
An ordinance to appropriate just under $27 million for JSD in the city’s FY18 budget passed by a narrow 5-4 margin Wednesday. That’s an increase of nearly $1 million from the adopted FY17 budget, due in part to a projected increase in enrollment. The Finance Committee had been expecting this increase for months.
There are still questions on a statewide level, as the Alaska Senate has proposed a plan that would cut 5 percent from education funding across the state. JSD Board of Education President Brian Holst said the board is ready to return to the drawing board if the state goes with the Senate’s plan.
“If the Legislature adopts the House version of the budget, we are all set,” Holst said after the meeting. “If they agree to cut education, we go back to work on cutting our budget. I am happy that at least we have the city committed to fully funding our schools.”
One of the members of the Legislature shared his thoughts at Wednesday’s meeting. Rep. Justin Parish, D-Juneau, was one of two who testified on behalf of the school district. He was brief in his comments, first expressing his gratitude for the Assembly’s financial commitment to JSD over the years.
Parish, who formerly worked at Floyd Dryden Middle School in Juneau, said he’s not the only one in the Capitol who values education.
“I’ve been working very hard to ensure that the state honors its obligations to municipalities,” Parish said, “and that we honor our responsibility to our youth and to the upcoming generation.”
The city side of the budget is mostly finalized, but it’s possible that the city could fund an additional $213,000 to JSD for transportation costs. This potential increase is on the Finance Committee’s list of pending items to consider including in the budget, and is the most expensive item on that list.
Wednesday’s meeting included moments of number-crunching, as Finance Director Bob Bartholomew, Finance Committee Kiehl and members of the Board of Education examined the budget during a brief break in the meeting before Kiehl proposed that the Assembly adopt the ordinance.
Of the money the city pledged to set aside for the school district in this year’s budget — $26,935,900, to be exact — $925,700 is outside the cap that the state sets.
Assembly member Jerry Nankervis raised an objection, not in the funding but on the timing of it. Nankervis asserted that he didn’t want the Finance Committee to handcuff itself this early in the budget process (the committee aims to finish its budget process in mid-May) by approving this level of funding. Assembly members Maria Gladziszewski, Beth Weldon and Debbie White voted ‘no’ along with Nankervis while the remainder of the Assembly approved the budget.
Those on hand from the School Board left the meeting ecstatic at the city’s commitment, but now turn their eyes to the state capitol. Kiehl and those on the Finance Committee will also keep an eye on the state’s actions.
In explaining the approval of the JSD budget, Kiehl said the $27 million budget now serves as a bottom line for the school district, depending on what happens at the state level.
“We have now set a minimum,” Kiehl said. “We may not go beneath that minimum unless the state does something terrible to school funding.”
