Schools looking at ’11-12 budget shortfall

PALMER — If something doesn’t happen soon, the Mat-Su Borough School District is going to be staring at a large hole in its budget.

School Board President Colleen Vague said the district is fine for this year. Its budget is in place and the year is proceeding apace. But next year there’s a $3 million funding gap district officials have no ability, as of yet, to fill.

She said a couple of things could happen in the interim to close that budget gap. The state Legislature had a bill in its last session to increase funding to school districts by $100 per student. If that passes this session it would plug the hole.

“That would be nice if we were to be able to get that amount of funding,” Vague said.

The state now pays the district just under $6,000 per student. Vague said that amounts to 68 percent of the district’s funds.

Another 14 percent comes from the borough, which could up its funding as well. The rest comes mostly from grants. By law, the borough can provide 24 percent of the district’s funding, but it has chosen not to in past years.

But as of now, none of it is enough. There are a number of reasons for that, Vague said. The district has been growing at a fairly rapid pace, adding hundreds of students and acres of classroom space in recent years. As enrollment numbers go up, so does spending and while the state’s funding also goes up with enrollment, it’s not enough.

So the state could fill the hole or the borough could — or something could just fall in the district’s lap. That kind of manna from heaven is what has kept the district afloat thus far. A few years back it was money then-Gov. Sarah Palin decided to give to districts to offset energy costs. The past two years the district has filled in its funding gaps with federal stimulus dollars, which allowed the district to retain 20 teachers it would have otherwise have had to lay off.

“Once those are gone, all of a sudden we’re looking at a bit of a cliff that we’re jumping off of,” Vauge said.

If something doesn’t come through, Vague said the district is looking at cuts. Those cuts, however unpopular it might be, will have to be to staffing.

The district spends 88 percent of its money on salaries and benefits. Add in energy costs and more than 90 percent of the budget is static, she said. The district can’t make up this kind of shortfall by nibbling around the edges.

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