Alaska education advocates are struggling to increase school funding amid a legislative stalemate. While a significant increase is needed to counteract years of inflation-driven losses, conservative lawmakers remain reluctant without accompanying reforms to improve test scores. School districts across the state are facing severe budget shortfalls, leading to increased class sizes, program cuts, and hiring challenges.
Supporters of a veto overrride vote lined the halls of the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau on March 18, 2024, as lawmakers convened in a joint session to consider overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of an education funding bill.
Lawmakers were one vote short of overriding the veto. JUNEAU — Alaska education advocates are gearing up for another attempt to substantially increase school funding, but they say it’s unclear how a looming legislative stalemate will be broken. Last year, the Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy failed to approve an expansive education package after protracted negotiations. As a result of the deadlock, legislatorsIn December, Dunleavy indicated that he would soon unveil a roughly $200 million education package in a fiscal environment strained by. The governor’s office has declined to say what would be in the education package or when it would be unveiled. However, education advocates say a $500 million school funding increase is needed annually to make up for 15 years of losses from inflation. Conservative lawmakers have typically been reluctant to increase education funding unless it’s tied to reforms to improve Alaska’s bottom-of-the-nation test scores. While education advocates say they welcome policy debates, they are focused on passing a permanent and substantial school funding increase. But they remain pessimistic.“We’re just so far behind. I worry about that. That’s a lot of stress,” said Lon Garrison, executive director of the Association of Alaska School Boards.The Anchorage School District is facing a $111 million deficit. Some high school classes have 40 students; some elementary school classes have 30 students. Without a funding increase, class sizes will keep increasing, administrators say. “We would want those numbers to be a lot lower,” said Andy Holleman, Anchorage School Board president. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District has a projected $16 million deficit and strained savings. School theaters, a swimming pool and extracurricular activities could be on the chopping block. “This time around, there’s really no way around significant cuts across the board,” said Kenai Superintendent Clayton Holland.“We closed three schools; consolidated two high schools, two middle schools, and transitioned our sixth graders back to elementary school,” he said.Other districts report similar deficits and persistent hiring challenges. Rising power, health care and insurance costs have strained budgets. Rural school administrators describe crumbling facilities.. Superintendents said that came late in the budget cycle and merely allowed them to tread water. Some districts still drew heavily from savings.Over the past 15 years, the $5,960 Base Student Allocation — the state’s per-student funding formula — has increased by $280 at an added cost of $70 million per year to the state. The division found the BSA would need to have been increased by $1,808 over that period to make up for inflation. Extrapolated over the next fiscal year, theSome members of the Legislature, though, have been skeptical about the benefits of a blanket funding increase without policy changes. “We should always be talking about outcomes and ways to improve outcomes,” said Anchorage Republican Rep.-elect Mia Costello, the incoming House minority leader.Palmer GOP Sen. Shelley Hughes echoed Costello, and said additional funding should be targeted to classrooms. She supports school choice by expanding how public education funds are used at private schools.But time could be running out for legislators to act to avoid a trip to the courts. Last year, the Coalition for Education Equity threatened to sue the state, arguing that current funding levels run afoul of the state constitution’s requirement to maintain a system of public education. Executive director Caroline Storm said the coalition is waiting to see whether legislators approves a funding increase this year. She said educators and parents can’t wait.a permanent and historic school funding increase. Included in the package was a funding boost for homeschooled students, and provisions intended to expand charter schools., partly because it did not allow a board the governor appoints to first approve new charter schools — a power currently reserved for locally elected boards.Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski led negotiations with Dunleavy last year. He described those efforts as frustrating. “It’s hard to negotiate with someone who has shown repeatedly that they will not honor the agreements that they’ve made,” he said. Fifty-six of 60 legislators initially voted to approve the education package. After Dunleavy’s veto, 17 Republicans switched their votes, dooming the override effort to failure. “I think there was a pretty stark message sent last election that people want their legislators to take care of the kids and the teachers in the schools,” Wielechowski said. He expected the Legislature would pass an education measure this year. Lawmakers would work with Dunleavy to get his approval. But if that failed, there would again be another veto override effort, he said.House and Senate majority members say their caucuses have not agreed to a BSA increase they will support this year. In an interview, Hughes said a funding boost would need to be accompanied by meaningful reforms to get enough support to become law. “We will uphold the governor’s veto — you can count on that. And so they better work with us this time,” she said.Interest groups are readying for another potentially bruising legislative fight. The state’s teachers union wants a substantial increase to school funding that would then be automatically adjusted for inflation. The union also wants a return to Tom Klaameyer, president of NEA-Alaska, said the union wants to reach a compromise with Dunleavy. But teachers would likely oppose a funding boost if it was contingent on policies like Dunleavy’s previous charter school plan, he said. “It shouldn’t be transactional,” Klaameyer said. “You don’t trade bad education policy for fulfilling our moral obligation to funding our schools, and ensuring that we’re attracting and retaining the best educators that our students deserve.” Multiple education advocates said they believed Dunleavy would hold a school funding increase hostage for reforms they say pave the way for voucher programs. Several advocates were pessimistic that Dunleavy’s veto power could be overwhelmed. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative-libertarian advocacy group, supports expanding how public funds are used at private schools. The group’s Alaska chapter last year wanted to expand homeschool and correspondence programs, and”We think education funding should be used to directly support students, instead of allocating dollars to a general school district fund,” said executive director Bethany Marcum. “In other words, we should be funding students and results, not systems.” For longtime advocates, the looming legislative fight is familiar. But they say the consequences of inaction are only getting more dire. “It seems like ‘Groundhog Day’ all over again,” said Garrison, president of the Association of Alaska School Boards. “And at some point that’s got to change or the system is just going to collapse, and that’s what I’m afraid of.”Sean Maguire is a politics and general assignment reporter for the Anchorage Daily News based in Juneau. He previously reported from Juneau for Alaska's News Source. Contact him at smaguire@adn.com.
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