KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | School District to hold hearings on budget cuts

School District to hold hearings on budget cuts

by Ashton Goodell
Tuesday, November 03, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The Anchorage School District is expecting major cutbacks.

As the city tightens its budget belt, the school district is coming under scrutiny.

The district says there is a $15 million funding gap in next year's budget, and it's time to step up.

It's still early and there are a lot of factors that could move that number up or down.

As it is now, the budget gap is big. The school board offered a few small ideas of what to cut, but it's a long way from closing the gap.  

Superintendent Carol Comeau expects a $15.4 million gap in funding next year.

"This is just the beginning of a very long slog," Comeau said.

This summer the school board and city met to see what they both expected to get out of the budget so they could make adjustments early on. 

The city made it clear that the district should expect flat funding from property taxes.

"We decided that it's really important to try to rebuild support in the community for the school district, and part of that to accept that we are going to be flat funded and try to help the city, perhaps absorbing some of the cost of some of the services previously paid for by the city," Comeau said.

School board members offered ideas of what to cut to make up the difference at Monday night's school board meeting.

One suggestion was to increase fees, but the idea played both hot and cold. Some worry that the public will perceive it as a backdoor approach to taxing.

"Possibly one of the ways to try to save some money might be in reducing the temperatures inside some of our buildings," said Crystal Kennedy, a school board member.

Another suggestion was to hold off on some computer upgrades.

They also suggested the district dip into the emergency fund or the fund balance, but the big worry is that the cuts will go into the classrooms.

"We may have to take the public relations hit that the increase in class size brings in order to do what's best for our students which may be providing other types of support service for them," said school board member Jeff Friedman.

The district expects more funding from the state, which could narrow the budget gap, but it doesn't know how much to expect.

"I am very hesitant to not be conservative on these assumptions because there's too many unknowns," Comeau said.

The district plans to present the upper limit on spending at next week's school board meeting.

The school board will hold four community hearings this month and next. To see what community members want to stay and what they think can go.

Contact Ashton Goodell at agoodell@ktuu.com