Mayor vetoes pre-school funding

By ANDREW WELLNER

Frontiersman.com

PALMER — Having looked reviewed hundreds of amendments to fund various projects and programs in the 2015 Mat-Su Borough budget, only one program drew a line-item veto from Mayor Larry DeVilbiss — preschool funding.

“Assembly members, please rethink this issue,” DeVilbiss wrote in the memo accompanying his veto, which the borough distributed Friday. “You are placing a new service with huge implications on the backs of our residential taxpayers.”

The budget line-item in question was a $350,000 appropriation to make up for state funding the Mat-Su Borough School District did not get this year for its pre-school program. The assembly will have a chance to override DeVilbiss’ veto at its meeting at 6 p.m., Tuesday.

The borough can’t tell the district how to spend money it hands over to schools. But district administrators have told the borough assembly the funding would support its pre-school program.

Assemblyman Matthew Beck said that education is close to his heart so, at the start of the budget cycle, he went to the school district to ask if there were needs he could help meet with a borough budget appropriation.

“I asked (Superintendent Deena) Paramo if there was a need for anything and she said this was one instance where the state fell short,” Beck said Friday.

The amendment eventually won unanimous support from the assembly.

Beck pointed out that the amendment didn’t raise property taxes. The assembly delivered a budget that slightly reduced taxes this year over last.

But DeVilbiss had a different view of the appropriation. He said he talked to Paramo after the budget passed and asked for assurances the district would not be back to the assembly next year asking for the same appropriation.

“Her answer was not reassuring,” DeVilbiss wrote in Friday’s memo before quoting Paramo’s reply to him:

“The District is working with Department of Education and Early Development and State Legislators to extend the state funding formula to include voluntary preschool programs. This will be a focused effort during the next year, anticipating that, when in place, voluntary preschool funds will be recurring and end the need for one-time appropriations or grant awards,” Paramo wrote.

DeVilbiss said that, having talked to state legislators, he was not optimistic that the state would add money for pre-school anytime soon.

“State funding will not be forthcoming. For one thing, there are no standards for pre kindergarten — it is regarded as glorified daycare. There is an attitude that in this environment of fiscal restraint we should not be looking to expand services and expenses,” he wrote.

Beck took issue with the idea of pre-school as glorified daycare. He pointed to national studies showing that kids who get pre-school education are less likely to commit crimes and more likely to embark on successful careers or obtain advanced degrees.

DeVilbiss disputes this as well, pointing to statistics showing that the leg-up kids get from pre-school disappears after fourth or fifth grade.

As for the funding, Beck said that he wasn’t concerned about the district coming back for more money.

“Will it become that and will they come back to us and ask for it? I don’t know. I trust Dr. Paramo is going to look for other sources of funding,” he said.

And what if the borough ends up funding it?

“If we end up funding a successful program we end up funding a successful program,” Beck said. “Why wouldn’t you want to support a district that’s growing and thriving. It’s great. Let’s build it.”

But DeVilbiss said he thinks the private sector can provide pre-school more efficiently and with better results.

“I abide by a position that I have held since my days on the school board. Public school is no place for 4-year-old kids. They should be learning from their parents at that age,” the mayor wrote in his veto memo. “I am also aware that not all kids have loving parents who have the time or disposition to teach their kids. That is why the daycare industry is booming in our nation and that is why public assistance is available for those parents that need it.”

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