Budget battle salvos unleashed

April 24, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - School officials say they are shocked by the Mat-Su Borough manager's proposed education budget for next year. They claim his numbers are off and his research is shoddy.

On Thursday, Borough Manager John Duffy sent Chief School Administrator Bob Doyle the borough's proposed budget. It was $4 million less than what Doyle expected.

The school district requested just more than $40 million from the borough for fiscal year 2006, but the budget Duffy recommends is $36 million.

The difference is partly due to a disagreement over how fast the school district is growing. The school district projects an increase of 897 students next year; Duffy's numbers account for only 500, with reserve funds available if an additional 800 students do show up.

By ordinance, borough funding is based upon a per-pupil allocation and a drop in student enrollment projections results in a significant loss in revenue for the school district.

"Growth and its associated costs can't be wished away by arbitrarily decreasing the district's enrollment projections or by ignoring the obvious need," Doyle said.

Duffy responded, saying his numbers are based on a combination of the district's projections and memos he received from them.

"We have two memos saying they expect 500 students and another that says it's between 500 and 800," Duffy said. "That's why we went with that."

Doyle, however, said Duffy is using memos from earlier in the year that were never intended to be the official numbers.

"The budget process is much more detailed," Doyle said Friday. "We looked at every school, every classroom and every grade. Duffy made his numbers up out of thin air."

Doyle said he would have liked a phone call from Duffy before he removed 397 students from the district's projected increase.

In his official letter to borough Assembly members, which accompanies his budget recommendations, Duffy wrote that he used a 10-year average along with memos from Doyle to calculate the projected student increase. According to the 10-year average, the district has grown by 276 students per year.

School district information specialist Kim Floyd said enrollment numbers are much higher when looking at the last three years. From 2002 to 2005, the average yearly increase has been 605 students.

"It's hard for us," Duffy said, referring to the process of evaluating enrollment numbers using figures that range from 500 to 897, depending on which projection they read.

Duffy admitted, though, that he probably should have contacted Doyle before finalizing the borough's enrollment numbers.

"We didn't talk with him," Duffy said. "We were running to get the budget done and there wasn't a whole lot of time to discuss this. That was probably a fault on our part."

Even with the lower student numbers, the borough's school expenditures would still account for 76 percent of its proposed $232-million budget for fiscal 2006. That represents an increase of about $14 million over last year.

But district officials claim they are in a rapid growth spurt and the borough's budget doesn't properly reflect that.

A fax sent out to school principals and administrators Friday claimed that the district would have to increase class sizes across the district and eliminate 57 additional teaching positions that the district was hoping to add next year.

On Tuesday, April 26, the district will present its fiscal 2006 budget to the borough Assembly.

People will have opportunities to voice their opinions at two open hearings on Thursday, May 5, and Tuesday, May 12.

Both public meetings take place in the Mat-Su Borough Public Safety Building at 7 p.m.

Once the public-comment period is over, the borough Assembly has until May 31 to approve a final budget for fiscal 2006.

Contact Joel Davidson at

352-2266, or joel.davidson@

frontiersman.com.