Assembly, school board continue discussion of funding gap for Houston Middle School

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough and Mat-Su Borough School District School Board have not yet found a way to fund the remaining $6 million in order to put a bid out to reconstruct Houston Middle School.

It has been over 850 days since the November of 2018 earthquake rattled Southcentral Alaska and ultimately led to the demolition of HMS. The building that housed HMS was built in 1985 and served as the high school until the current Houston High School building was built nearly two decades ago. Since November of 2018, over 300 middle school students have been sharing the building at Houston Jr./Sr. High, as well as 13 outdoor portable classrooms. Dozens of members of the Houston school community attended the joint meeting of the assembly and school board on Tuesday to voice their frustration in delay.

“We wanted to speak on behalf of all of our students on how we need to have our new school built now,” said HHS sophomore Josie Reintsma. “We’ve been waiting for a new school for two and a half years and most of us graduate in the next two and we have 11-year-old sixth graders hanging out with 18-year-old seniors in the hallway. This needs to happen now so we can finish out high school in a normal school environment.”

Reintsma spoke with four other sophomore classmates at HHS who have dealt with overcrowding, scheduling conflicts, and lack of space for the last two-and-a-half years. Reintsma spoke about counseling sessions held in storage closets, basketball practices held until 10 p.m., in the smallest gym in the district and numerous members of the public spoke about the unusable portable bathroom trailer conditions that have resulted in long delays for students using the restroom.

A 33-year employee of the MSBSD, Houston Mayor Virgie Thompson works at HJSH and led a cheer from the podium during her testimony.

“My goal by testifying tonight along with my Hawk peers sitting behind me is to hear that the Mat-Su Borough and the Mat-Su Borough School District have come to an agreement to find, transfer, or amend budgets to allocate and complete the Houston Middle School retrofit project,” said Thompson. “It is my opinion that our students, staff, and community have been more than patient. Our students, staff, and community deserve a new school. Our students deserve a safe, warm, real classroom environment to learn.”

In the immediate aftermath of the 2018 earthquake, the district and borough worked together to reallocate 12 portable classrooms to Houston and creatively scheduled field trips to prevent overcrowding. Another portable classroom has since been built, and since the earthquake the district has shifted from a plan to repair sections of the building that could have been salvageable to an entire demolition and reconstruction project.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has yet to respond to the borough on their ruling of the “50 percent rule” which would provide additional relief funding if the damage to the building was deemed to be greater than half of its worth. More than two years after the earthquake, FEMA has yet to issue a determination. The borough has received payouts from two separate insurance policies, and the borough and school district have both contributed to the $28.1 million in verifiable funds that have been collected, according to borough Finance Director Cheyenne Heindel. The price tag of the building construction is set at $34 million, and the project cannot be put out for bid this spring if the $6 million gap is not filled. Delay of allowing the project to be bid on this spring could result in an additional six months to one year of delay before the projected reopening of Houston Middle School for the fall semester of 2022.

“It’s embarrassing that it could take more than five years to get a school built,” said MSBSD Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani. “The district could forward fund, but back to that problem slide. We don’t think it’s our obligation to pay for reconstruction of buildings. We think that the Alaska statute is pretty clear and that is the borough’s responsibility.”

Additionally, the $34 million to build the school would not pay for furnishings, which could cost as much as $1.7 million. Trani noted that the estimate is likely higher than what the actual costs may come out to be. Throughout discussion, members of the assembly and school board remained hopeful that the funds would be made available and the project would go out for bid on time, but were not able to take any specific action to allocate those funds on Tuesday.

“Thank you to you five sophomores for showing up,” said Assemblyman Rob Yundt II. “Do you feel like you’re listening to a big game of cat and mouse, because that’s what’s happening. So I assure you that everybody on the assembly, the school board, your guys’ superintendent and our mayor are really damn good people. We were waiting to find out how much money we were going to get from FEMA, we’ve got insurance stuff we’ve got to figure out but I guarantee you we’re going to build that school and I hope they just lock us in a room and we can figure this out, but I assure you it’s going to happen soon.”

Trani presented a number of different scenarios that could possibly fill the funding gap including a much anticipated ruling from FEMA, a legislative appropriation from General Obligation bonds and forward funding the project now to be paid back at a later date. Borough Attorney Nick Spiropolous was called on in a tense moment to provide analysis on Alaska State title 14, chapter 14, section 060. At a school board meeting on March 17, Trani presented sections E and F of 14.14.060 as justification for why the district would not be able to provide funding, arguing that using monies designated for instruction on construction would be a violation of the statute, although the board had already voted to appropriate $5.9 million last year.

“I think it’s important to look at the statute because you left a gigantic part of the statute out that says those duties can be changed,” said Spiropolous.

School Board President Ole Larson objected to Spiropolous’ reading of 14.14.060, which offered a contradictory assessment than had been provided to the school board.

“E is the part that talks about the borough assembly constructing and doing the schools. Look at I, notwithstanding E and F, a borough assembly and a borough school board may divide the duties imposed under E and F by agreement. It is not a prohibition,” read Spiropolous. “The question is, is it an illegal action to do it and the answer is clearly no because the statute says so.”

School Board member Jim Hart also took issue with Spiropolous’ interpretation of the statute.

“When was the agreement reached that the school board would take this up?” asked Hart. “Until there’s an agreement reached, I would say it is.”

The school board will host a special meeting to discuss Houston funding on March 31 at the MSBSD central office.