Teachers to retain jobs, says board president

Frontiersman

PALMER — Since the borough has set the amount of money it plans to give the school district, now it’s the school board’s turn to hammer out specifics.

“The budget is kind of a work in progress,” said School Board President Jim Colver.

But that doesn’t mean they haven’t done some work already. For starters, he said, on Wednesday the board voted to retain all of its teachers. Which might come as a relief to worried staffers who’ve been watching the budget process. With the borough assembly’s decision, Colver said, things are more definite.

“Without knowing what our funding level was going to be, the district felt like we were going to have a reduction in staff but we were able to bring everybody back,” Colver said.

Now it’s time to get into the details, to see what the district can afford and what it can’t. Meetings on that topic are scheduled to begin next month, with work sessions on June 3 and June 10, followed by a meeting June 10 at which the board expects it will adopt the budget.

Part of that debate, Colver said, will be to figure out what to do with education-related federal stimulus money Gov. Sarah Palin agreed to accept, having initially declined.

“We expect about 15 million, and half of that will be able to not be in the restrictive categories of special education and serving special needs students,” Colver said.

The money will be spread over two years and the board will soon begin debate about what to do with it.

“What Jim Colver is proposing is a two-year plan,” Colver said. “I think we should look at how we’re going to use it over two years so we can have a soft landing and we won’t have to reduce staff.”

The other decision of note to district watchers is the board’s vote to extend its janitorial and maintenance contract with NANA Management for only 90 days rather than for another year.

That, again, is a work in progress.

“I haven’t heard yet if NANA wants to exercise that 90 exemption yet or not,” Colver said Friday.

That 90 days, he said, gives time for the Classified Employees Association, which represents school district employees, to wrap up negotiations with the district to hopefully provide with school district staff the services NANA covers but for a price comparable to what NANA has set.

“I think the direction was fairly clear now that we’re going back to try to provide those services in-house if it can be done affordably,” Colver said.

He said he thinks the district is moving toward closure on the issue, which has remained contentious, at least at school board meetings since it’s inception back in the spring of 2006. The Classified Employees Association took the district to court over the decision and was ruled against twice in Superior Court in Palmer.  In early April of this year, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld judge Beverly Cutler’s decision in that case.

“I’m hopeful that now we’re going to heal a wound and be back together in one team as a school district,” Colver said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.