Meeting on school issues addresses budget, maintenance, land use

PALMER — At the Joint Assembly / School Board Committee meeting on School Issues held at the Mat-Su Borough School District offices on Monday, the discussion centered on the budget, maintenance for schools, and land use.

The former Iditarod Elementary School has been demolished, according to a staff report, for a price tag of $642,000. The new Iditarod Elementary School opened in advance of the fall semester in 2016.

The borough also recently completed a purchase agreement and acquired the warranty deed for land for the Midnight Sun Learning Center Charter School. The property was purchased at a $119,000 contribution from the school district, along with with a $40,000 contribution from the charter school and a promisory note to pay the $79,000 remainder on Aug. 1 of this year.

The district is currently seeking sites for two new elementary schools identified in its Six Year Capital Improvement Plan. One of the schools would be in the Wasilla area near Hyer Road, and would capture overflow from Cottonwood Creek, Machetanz, Pioneer Peak and Finger Lake Elementary Schools. The other would be in south Palmer, to capture overflow from Sherrod and Swanson Elementary Schools, as well as some from Machetanz.

The borough is also looking for a land site to build a bus barn and fleet maintenance facility, to be located inside a three-mile radius of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Seward Meridian Parkway Intersection.

Several school maintenance and improvement projects are finished or nearing completion, according to staff reports, with requests for proposals published on the district website currently and in the coming weeks.

School district staff also reported that new requests going forward for state department of education dollars to support school infrastructure projects are subject to a new vetting process and greater scrutiny, which has slowed some of the borough’s applications as it adjusts to the new process.

The Joint Assembly / School Board Committee is an informational meeting, district public information officer Catherine Esary said, and is relatively informal and doesn’t make decisions about items for discussion.

The group also shared copies of the district’s 2017-2018 Preliminary Budget Handbook, which projects an approximately $10 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2017-2018, with overall expenses projected at $241.3 million, and preliminary revenue pegged at $231.4 million.

The handbook includes a pie chart that shows 73 percent of expenditures go toward instruction, special education and education support services. Thirteen percent goes to school and district administration and administration support; 11 percent goes to operations and maintenance; and 2 percent goes to student activities, with a remaining 1 percent, at nearly $2.5 million, going to a category listed as “Other Financing Uses.”

For more information on the school district budget, go to http://www.matsugov.us/spotlights/borough-budget. The district is also hosting annual budget open houses on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at Iditarod Elementary School from 6:30 – 8 p.m., and on Thursday, Feb. 9 at Palmer Junior Middle School from 6:30 – 8 p.m.