District announces cuts; hundreds

of jobs impacted

By JEN RANSOM-Frontiersman reporter

PALMER -- It was announced Wednesday night that co-curricular programs, services for at-risk youth and several other programs are slated to be cut to balance the Mat-Su school district's fiscal year '05 budget, and as many as 88 positions will be eliminated, with dozens more impacted.

Chief School Administrator Bob Doyle announced the proposed cuts at the Mat-Su Borough School Board meeting, stressing that the cuts needed are going to have a wide-spread impact throughout the Valley.

"These are agonizing decisions," Doyle said. "We tried as best as possible to build a fiscal plan with the least negative impact to student learning. However, we will lose programs and services that I feel are important and necessary for the success of our children."

Doyle went on to say that the quality of education, in the 2004-2005 school year, not only in this district, but districts across the state, will not be up to his or many other people's standards. Doyle said that without adequate funding, the district is just going to have to make do.

"This is an eight million dollar problem," Doyle said.

The district is no stranger to cuts that run deep; in FY04 the district had to cut $7 million from its budget, and in November of 2002 (FY03), the district was forced to lay off 48 classified employees. Now the district is faced with an $8 million cut in 2005, with more cuts in the future if funding isn't provided.

Other districts around the state are also faced with similar dilemmas; Anchorage has proposed a slashing of more than 300 positions in FY05, and is cutting other programs that the Mat-Su has done without for years, according to Doyle.

While the Mat-Su Borough Assembly has funded education at the maximum allowed under state law for the last three years, meaning there can be no local increase in revenue to balance the budget, inadequate state-level funding, mandatory increases to the state's retirement system (PERS/TRS) and increases in negotiation salaries and benefits have all contributed to the budget shortfall.

Doyle stressed that unless parents, teachers, community groups and others who care about the quality of our schools start taking the initiative to tell their legislators to find ways to fund education, the cuts will continue in the following years.

"I do think that as a state we are going to have to grow up and start paying for the services for our children," Doyle said.

Mike Chmielewski, school board president, said the district has done well at making do in the past, so the cuts now are running deeper than ever before.

"We're victims of our own success, we've been doing a dance and have been able to make it work, now there's a much larger scale [of cuts] and we're trying to dance again," Chmielewski said.

While board members and the audience listened to the district's proposed cuts with dropped jaws, there were many who spoke of joining forces with Doyle in asking legislators to support funding education.

"Adequate funding from the state is our problem, and we promise to do our part in solving this problem," said Barb Morris, Mat-Su Employee Association president.

"I am here to tell you I am ready to fight with you," said another audience member.

Ann Kilkenny, a delegate of the Conference of Alaskans, said she is also ready to step up to the plate, and is happy that everyone is on the same page.

"Amongst this discouraging, frustrating news, I am pleased that I have not seen any finger pointing, and that we are all in this together," Kilkenny said.

The one, and perhaps only, good thing out of the proposed plan, said Doyle, is a change to budgeted average class sizes instead of pupil teacher ratios. A common belief is that PTR is a synonym for average class size, but PTR is actually a formula used to staff buildings, meaning that the number of students in a building is divided by the required PTR, then that number of teachers are staffed at that particular building. This formula provides no requirements for an actual class size. While PTR will still be used to staff grades 6-12, the district's proposal will budget average class sizes rather than PTR for grades K-5, which will result in smaller class sizes.

"If there is any good news, this is it," Doyle said.