Borough lets schools keep energy money

PALMER — An at-times heated debate between the Mat-Su Borough School District and Mat-Su Borough Assembly was put to rest Tuesday when the assembly voted unanimously to allow the school district to keep the unspent portion the $2.3 million in energy assistance money it received this year from the state Legislature.

The Assembly voted instead to hold an estimated $500,000 of unspent school district operating funds from the district’s 2008 budget.

An ordinance proposed by Assemblyman Rob Wells initially proposed waiving all requirements that the district hand over half of its unspent energy assistance money, about $800,000, by June 30. Assemblyman Pete Houston proposed the winning compromise.

The energy assistance money has been on the minds of the Mat-Su School District School Board recently as it attempted to find ways to spend the money before the June 30 deadline. Borough ordinances require half of all unspent money be handed over to the Borough and put in its fund for acquiring new school sites.

Ron Rucker, Classified Employees Association president at the school district, urged the assembly to waive the rule entirely and let the district keep all the money. He said when an organization is told to spend money or lose it, it can make wasteful decisions.

Assemblywoman Michelle Church disagreed, saying the district is supposed to ask for only as much as it needs and excess should go back to the Borough, the tax-levying body, to be reallocated.

“They’re spending down to zero,” Rucker said.

“That’s good,” Church replied.

“No, it’s not good because it’s spend or lose,” Rucker said. “It’s good business to have some kind of a reserve fund.”

Superintendent George Troxel told the assembly that by June 30 he estimates that $800,000 of the $2.3 million energy assistance would be left over. Under the rules without an exemption, half that money plus half of the projected $1 million that will be left over out of the district’s operating budget would revert to the Borough.

Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine, who eventually sided with Houston’s compromise, initially advocated keeping all the money owed the Borough under the rules, which would have totaled about $900,000.

“I just think we have been very responsible to the school district and there’s no reason to do this,” Bettine said about making a exception for the energy assistance funding.

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

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