Borough assembly lets school district keep more leftover money

PALMER — It’s been a bone of contention between the Mat-Su Borough School District and Mat-Su Borough for years — what should be done with money left over at the end of the school year?

In most past years, the borough has swept half that money into an account it keeps on hand to pay for land acquisition to build new schools. Critics of that policy have pointed out that it keeps the school district from being able to build up emergency reserves and creates situations in which people might be tempted to spend money unnecessarily in order not to lose it.

In 2009, then-assemblyman Rob Wells tried and failed to change the rules to let the district keep the first $1 million and roll the rest into the site selection fund. At the time, it was said that over the previous decade, some years the leftover funds exceeded $2 million, but not often and not by much.

On Tuesday, the borough assembly arrived at a compromise— the district can hold on to 75 percent of it. The borough will only scoop up 25 percent.

“This is an equitable way to disperse the end-of-the-year funds,” schools superintendent Deena Paramo said at the meeting. “It shows prudent planning and prudent spending.”

So where did the assembly come up with those numbers? It’s roughly the split of how the district is funded; 75 percent comes from the state and 25 from the borough.

Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss said his mind was changed on the subject in a meeting with state Sen. Mike Dunleavy, who was a Mat-Su Borough School Board member immediately prior to his election to the Senate. He’d been there to talk about a piece of state legislation being considered at the time. The legislation — which didn’t pass — would have required the borough not to scoop up any of that money.

“I was lobbying against the state using their strong arm to tell us how to handle the fund balance,” DeVilbiss said. “The question from Sen. Dunleavy was what is it you are really interested in protecting? Is it your taxpayer dollars or all the money that the school district gets? It made me think. Really what I’ve been protective about is our borough taxpayers.”

The assembly made two tweaks to the ordinance. As initially presented it let the district keep 80 percent of the leftover money. Assemblyman Jim Colver successfully changed that to 75 percent on the argument that that number is closer to the actual state/local funding split.

The second tweak changed the effective date. Borough Attorney Nick Spiropoulos pointed out that, as initially written, the change wouldn’t take effect until after the next school year. Assemblyman Steve Colligan succeeded in changing the ordinance so that funds left over at the end of last year will be split in the 75/25 manner.

Borough Manger John Moosey said that either way, it won’t impact borough operations much — that money was going to be parked in the site selection fund, after all, so changing the split would in no way impact any borough projects.

Assemblyman Ron Arvin said his mind, too, had been changed on the matter.

“Prior to Dr. Paramo’s tenure at the school district, Dr. (Kenneth) Burnley approached me a number of times on this issue,” he said. “I support this even though I was a staunch opponent to changing this in the past. I think it is equitable and it is (a) by-dollar basis on who is contributing.”

Paramo, for her part, likened the change to household budgeting.

“All of us families would like to have a savings account which we can access in emergencies,” she said. “The Mat-Su school district wishes to do this, too.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com