School board adopts budget

PALMER -- With several variables left unknown, the Mat-Su Borough School Board last week adopted a $24-million budget plan for next school year that includes more money for a local charter school and a smaller cut to Trapper Creek Elementary.

Addressing several concerns parents and teachers brought before them during budget public hearings, the board members last week designated an additional $65,000 for Midnight Sun Family Learning Center charter school and another $65,000 to partially restore a staff cut at Trapper Creek Elementary as part of next year's budget.

In many ways these funding restorations and the budget as a whole are hypothetical, however. While the school board was required to adopt a budget to refer to the borough assembly by April 1, three major factors remain unresolved that could drastically affect the numbers -- union contract negotiations and funding from both the Legislature and Mat-Su Borough.

"On one hand, we've done some excellent work and this is our best guess … while at the same time, we could end up changing things around," board member Mike Chmielewski said.

The school district is set to go to mediation with both its teachers and classified employees early next month in hopes of coming up with contracts with the two unions. As it stands, the budget includes an additional 3 percent from last year to cover step increases and rising health insurance costs. Employees, however, are requesting additional compensation.

At the same time, the assembly has given little indication of whether it intends to repeat last year's full funding to the district, which is what the district based its budget upon. During a recent joint meeting between the board and assembly, several assembly members implied funding to the maximum could be a hard sell.

Finally, the district won't know how much state funding it will get per student until the Legislature adopts its budget, which probably won't be until May.

"And I have a big fear that education may not fare as well as we have hoped," said school board member Carl Gatto, who recently went to Juneau with other board members. Member Rob Wells said approval of a budget is just the beginning of another process -- lobbying for education dollars from the assembly and Legislature.

While the budget may be in a state of limbo for several months, the school board and district did make a point of addressing concerns brought up during budget hearings. At last week's meeting, the board spent several hours going over specific items in the budget.

Midnight Sun Family Learning Center requested additional funds after the state changed the way the charter school could count its students and, therefore, how much state money it would receive. Of the $65,000 in additional money the board approved, $29,000 is considered a one-time supplement to assist the school during the transition. The board unanimously approved the budget change.

The board was not as united in its decision to partially restore cuts to Trapper Creek Elementary. Dropping enrollment at the school prompted the district administration to recommend reducing its staff from seven to roughly four and a half. The teaching principal at Trapper Creek argued this would negatively affect the educational experience for students, however, and requested the board budget for at least one more teacher.

Board member Linda Menard pointed out that with the additional teacher, the cost per student at the school would be $19,000, considerably more than at most district schools.

Member Carl Gatto shared similar concerns, saying that in some Mat-Su schools class sizes are up to 40 or 50 students, compared to the eight or 10 in Trapper Creek classes. He said that in a time of abundant money he would be able to support partially restoring the cuts to the elementary school.

"But we don't have abundant money," he said.

The five other board members, however, voted in favor of the restoration, saying that decreasing the school's staff so dramatically could only worsen the enrollment problems.

Also during last week's meeting, board member Bob Johnson moved to give the district's correspondence

program an additional $127,000 it had requested for another teacher and additional supplies.

"They have a tremendous number of students and they do need this," Johnson

argued, gaining support from all of his fellow board

members.

The board was able to fund these requests after the district's finance department went back into the budget and squeezed the money from other areas. By using actual salaries instead of estimates in some of the smaller employee bargaining units, the district was able to identify another nearly $200,000 for the board to use. An additional $150,000 was taken from audit fees, which Assistant Superintendent Bob Doyle said would be feasible while still allowing the district to meet all its requirements.

At one point, the board discussed increasing its estimate of student enrollment by 100 in order to come up with more money. While Doyle said it is possible the district will see more than the predicted 1.5-percent increase in enrollment, he recommended against such a change, which, if wrong, would force budget cuts part way through the school year.

Member Larry DeVilbiss was among the more vocal opponents of the plan to bump up enrollment predictions, saying it increases the bottom line instead of redirecting funds within a conservative budget estimate. He said such fidgeting with the numbers could jeopardize assembly support.

"It really leaves a nasty aftertaste on the assembly side," he said.

The board ultimately rejected the plan. It did, however, increase the bottom line by $2 million from the original $122-million budget plan. Half of that is for learning opportunity grants from the state that were expected to be left out of the state budget earlier in the legislative session but now appear viable. The other $1 million would be for pending grants. Doyle pointed out that the district has proven it excels at bringing in grant money, and said including the yet-received grants in the budget would eliminate the need for assembly approval to accept the grants once they come in.

DeVilbiss and Gatto voted against the budget, however, saying they preferred to go with a more conservative budget estimate.