Mat-Su schools, like the state, face big budget gaps next year

Mat-Su schools are looking at another gaping budget hole next year. Borough assembly member Stefanie Nowers said the school district faces a budget gap that could range between $46 million and $22 million.

The size of the gap will depend on how much money state legislators in Juneau can scrape together for education, Nowers said at the borough assembly meeting on Tuesday, March 4.

It will also depend on how much Gov. Mike Dunleavy will allow, too. Another unknown is how the turmoil in Washington D.C. with federal funding will affect money going to Mat-Su, she said.

Nowers attended a briefing by school officials earlier where the deficit was discussed.

School districts around the state are struggling with deficits, some worse than others. Education funding is a hot topic in the Legislature right now, too.

The first legislation to be moving in Juneau is House Bill 69, sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, Unaffiliated-Sitka, which increases the state’s Basic Student Allowance, or BSA, by $1,000, up from the current $5,960 per pupil.

Hb 69 would increase overall funding for schools by $253.2 million next year. It’s not known how much that would help Mat-Su ease its deficit. Gov. Mike Dunleavy doesn’t like a straight increase in the BSA, however. He wants program changes by schools that will measure outcomes and has introduced his own education program reform bill, Senate Bill 82, that has an increase of $180 million along with policy changes.

Both bills must be viewed in the context of a yawning overall state deficit projected now at about $500 million. That’s the amount the Legislature must come up with to cover the deficit in the current state budget year, FY 2025, and the upcoming FY 2026, which begins July 1.

Any new money for schools, is likely to be in addition to that. Sen. Mike Shower, R-Mat-Su, the Senate Minority Leader, thinks that when other things are added to the budget such as money for state employee union contracts are added, the deficit will grow larger. ‘

Shower made his remark during a Senate Minority briefing last Monday, March 3. How all this will play out is unknown.

House Bill 69, meanwhile, will be the first substantial funding and policy bill the Legislature will deal with in 2025. It was reported out of the House Rules Committee Thursday, March 5, and will likely be on the floor of the House this week, beginning March 10.

The House Majority, a coalition made up of Democrats, independent or nonaligned legislators and Republican moderates, have a thin margin of control in the House. It takes 21 votes of the 40-member House to pass a bill, so the Majority can’t afford to have one defection.

The House Minority, made up of traditional, mostly conservative Republicans, control 19 votes and will be offering amendments as HB 69 goes on the floor, making efforts peel off one or two votes from the Majority on given amendments.

This process of amendments being offered, debated and voted on, will probably go on for several days and is a traditional part of the Legislature’s enactment of major bills. The Minority effort will likely be aimed at making HB 69 more like the governor’s bill, which is geared to results with more funding.

There are already parts of HB 69 similar to the governor’s legislation as it was changed in committees of the House in the last two weeks. For example, an “open enrollment’ provision was put in to let parents enroll students in any school of their choice, although it would be school in the same school district where the student would normally have attended a school.

The governor’s bill, in contrast, would allow parents to enroll students in any school district in the state. If HB 69 passes the House, which is likely in the end, it will go to the Senate where further changes will be proposed, debated and voted on.

In the end the governor has the final say with his veto authority. Whether or not he will exercise that will likely depend on whether HB 69 has enough elements of the governor’s own education bill to make it acceptable.