Borough Assembly will let school district keep energy supplement money

PALMER — The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly voted unanimously Tuesday to let the school district keep its energy supplement allocation money from the legislature.

The Assembly voted to hold on to an estimated $500,000 of unspent school district operating funds.

An ordinance proposed by assemblyman Rob Wells initially proposed waiving all requirements that the district hand over half of its unspent money by June 30. Assemblyman Pete Houston proposed the winning compromise.

The energy assistance money has been on the minds of the Matanuska-Susitna School District School Board recently as they attempt to find a way to spend it. Borough ordinances require that half of all unspent money be handed over to the borough and put in its fund for acquiring new school sites.

Superintendent George Troxel was on hand Tuesday and told the assembly that by June 30 he estimated that $800,000 of the $2.3 million energy assistance would be left over. Under the rules, half of that money plus half of the projected $1 million that will be left over out of the district’s operating budget reverts to the borough.

Assemblyman Tom Kluberton brought up the problem of rebuilding Su-Valley High School, which burned down in June of last year. Insurance money on the project, the district recently discovered, might fall short of the $17 million base project cost.

The site selection fund is one the borough has looked at tapping to make up the shortfall. Kluberton urged caution since, if the assembly decided to let the district keep all the money, it would be very difficult to get it back.

“Before long we’re going to be sitting around this table dialing for dollars trying to figure out where that money’s going to come from,” Kluberton said.

Hearing Houston’s amendment, Kluberton did some quick math, adding the $1 million left in the Su-Valley roofing project fund — a project halted by the fire — $1.5 million sitting in the site acquisition fund and $500,000 from the lapsed school district operating funds.

That $3 million, he said, might just make the nut.