Cuts & displacements: A waiting game in Southcentral for education funding

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Across Southcentral Alaska, school districts are facing staffing cuts and displacements looking into the next school year.

The Anchorage School District (ASD) announced on Monday that it could be seeing hundreds of positions displaced due to a lack of education funding. In a letter sent out to ASD families on Monday, the district wrote, “If we do not receive any additional funding by the end of the year, targeted layoffs for some job titles will likely be necessary.”

Further north, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District (MSBSD) said it is also facing major cuts.

“These cuts will be significant,” Mat-Su Superintendent Randy Trani said.

Trani told Alaska’s News Source Tuesday that he has prepared two separate budgets this year depending on the amount of state funding districts receive for each student, known as the Base Student Allocation (BSA).

Without answers on what funding is available, the district is now in limbo.

“It’s a real impact because we’re unable to plan for next year,” Trani said. “We don’t know what level of support we’re going to have financially, so we can’t hire staff. We can’t let kids know what courses they’re going to be taking or maybe even who their teacher will be.”

Right now, all eyes are on House Bill 69, which would increase the SBA by $1,000 to a total of $6,960 if passed. The bill passed the House last month by a 24-16 vote and is now in the hands of the Senate Education Committee, where lawmakers are crafting a committee substitute to present.

“It is what the Senate education believes is a good, strong policy approach to improving education outcomes across Alaska,” Sen. Löki Tobin, who is the Senate education chair, said. “I anticipate the legislation will receive wide bipartisan support in both bodies.”

This version of that bill, according to Tobin, still contains the proposed $1,000 BSA increase.

“The number is one that we know has received strong support in the House of Representatives and we believe $1,000 is a reasonable and significant increase as well as one that we will continue to receive strong support,” Tobin said.

Tobin also added, “It makes me feel pretty bad knowing that our schools are having to make devastating decisions based on a failure for the legislature to fulfill its constitutional obligations to adequately fund our public school system.”

Last year, Gov. Mike Dunleavy rejected Senate Bill 140, which proposed a $680 BSA. Dunleavy backed up his veto by saying that it lacked educational reforms that were offered in past education bills.

Alaska’s News Source reached out to Dunleavy’s office for his reaction towards the cuts and SB 69 but did not hear back as of publication.

The news of displacements comes as a disappointment for Anchorage Education Association President Corey Aist.

“I just spent two days down in Juneau talking with legislators and actually left a little bit discouraged. Discouraged that they have not been able to find a path forward to properly fund schools in Anchorage and across Alaska,” Aist said.

Aist told Alaska’s News Source that these displacements will impact class size and programs.

“I’m hearing from educators who, in the Fine Arts area — specifically at our secondary level — that are all being displaced,” Aist said. “Activities that students really engage in and are motivating and inspire them to come to school every day are being cut back.”

ASD officials noted that if funding does become available by the end of the year, it will work on reversing cuts. However, even if that bill passes, the Mat-Su district said cuts are still coming.

“The budget that I advanced, and the board approved, is based on a $1,000 BSA. The short version is in that version, we cut almost 80 positions,” Trani said.

Trani added that if a $680 BSA is passed, Mat-Su district officials will have to cut an additional 80 positions. That comes out to be a total of roughly 120 positions out of roughly 2,000 positions the district currently has.

Those cuts, Trani said, will be through attrition.

Leaders with the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District also told Alaska’s News Source that they are waiting to hear what education funding will look like this year.

That funding will determine what cuts it will need to make. At the moment, the district said, all tenured teachers and all special education teachers have been offered a contract for next year.

However, they said staff cuts are not off the table yet.

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