Assembly whacks $1 million from school district budget

PALMER - The proposed fiscal year 2000 budget for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough may not make it past the borough mayor's desk if he can pull together enough votes to support a veto. The operative word, of course, is "if."

At Tuesday's special meeting of the seven member Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly, borough mayor Darcie Salmon stated his intention to veto the proposed $136,180,252 budget for FY 2000.

"He hasn't as of yet," said deputy borough clerk, Elizabeth Manfred Wednesday afternoon. "He has until the next regular meeting to do so."

Education funding, always a touchy issue on the assembly, was the spark that lit the mayor's fire.

After a fairly uneventful evening of discussion and voting over changes to millage rates in various road service areas around the borough, and a proposed $50,000 grant to the Wasilla Public Library which failed, Assemblywoman Sara Jansen moved to add $911,221 to the proposed borough school district budget. The addition would have funded the school district to the cap allowed by state law, and placed the total of borough contributions at $25,650,106. The motion failed.

What happened next, however, took a lot of people by surprise.

Assemblyman Doyle Holmes moved to cut $1 million additional dollars from the borough's share of the school district budget.

This year's proposed school district budget is $100,117,120, of which $24,738,885 is to come from borough coffers. The rest comes from the state. Holmes' motion would reduce the borough's share to $23,738,8885, thereby reducing the proposed school district budget to just over $99 million.

Jansen, a staunch advocate of school funding, looked as if she had just been slapped.

"I was totally taken off guard," she said the following day.

Defending his proposed cut, Holmes said the school district had been inflating its student projections, and was not going to have as many new students as it was predicting.

"Our borough formula is in serious need of overhaul," said Assemblyman Jim Turner in agreement. It rewards over-estimates, he said.

Last year, the district over estimated the number of students it was expecting and ended up with over staffed elementary schools and under staffed high schools, said Turner. Because of the over estimates, the district ends up with extra money that no one can account for.

"This hidden money has been infused into the system," he said, but no one knows where it goes.

Assembly members requested an explanation of how the school district determines how many new hires it needs.

The hiring is based on projected enrollment, said Tammy Clayton, borough finance director.

Assemblyman Jim Colberg, siding with Jansen, noted that the yearly estimates of how many students the district will have are projections; no one knows what is going to happen, he said.

With legislative cutbacks to computer schooling and similar programs, the district could end up seeing even more students than presently anticipated, Colberg said.

In just the last year, more than 600 new homes were built in the borough, said Salmon who also spoke out strongly against the cut. Mat-Su could see as many built next year, he said.

Several assembly members said they could reconsider the cut in the fall, when the school district knows exactly how many students it has, and how many teachers it needs.

Waiting until September could prove disruptive to the students, said Jansen in an interview the Wednesday. The hiring process could take from six weeks to a couple of months out of the school year.

"I don't know if that's doing our best," Jansen said. "We've got kids sitting in rooms without enough desks."

In the end, the assembly voted 5-2 in favor of the cut. Colberg and Jansen voted against the measure.

The assembly also voted to lower the mill rate for school funding from 12.55 mills to 12.50, which would ensure there is still enough money to cover additional funding in September, should that be necessary.

Salmon has two options should he choose to veto the FY 2000 budget. He can veto the entire budget, which could conceivably force everyone through the whole budget process again, or he could exercise his line item veto power, and simply veto the cut to the school district budget. Only five votes are needed, however, for the assembly to override his veto. He has until June 1 to make a decision.

Photo: Assembly members and borough staff confer during a recess at Tuesday's budget hearings. From left to right are: Assemblyman Doyle Holmes, borough manager Mike Scott, borough clerk Sandra Dillon, finance director Tammy Clayton and Assemblywoman Jay Nolfi.

Photo by ERIC BURKETT.