Bob Griffin - School Board Seat C

Name: Bob Griffin

Occupation: Retired Fighter Pilot, current Airline Pilot and union member

Registered Political Party: Like most Alaskans, I'm very independent and not affiliated with any political party, but I consider myself "conservative".

Why are you running for the School Board?

I know we can help our kids do much better—without breaking the bank. Our school system has evolved into a huge bureaucracy with "Taj Mahal" buildings. This robs resources from our kids’ classrooms and limits our ability to increase pay for our best teachers. We need a change on the school board which puts the needs of the kids over other agendas. For two years in a row, the board has increased class sizes despite flat enrollment, abundant staffing and a budget rapidly approaching $1 Billion per year.

What one sentence best describes your philosophy of how the school district should be run?

Our school district leadership should put our kids' interests first and inspire them to reach their highest potential, while focusing on data-driven resource allocation that maximizes student achievement. 

What letter grade would you give the current school board, and why?

D-

The school board has made too many emotionally-driven fiscal decisions that rob resources from our kids' classrooms. Generous taxpayer contributions have been squandered, feeding a massively unproductive bureaucracy and constructing overly-elaborate facilities that have very little impact on achieving better student outcomes. The school board has increased class sizes two years in a row, despite declining enrollment and a dramatic increase in staffing. Increased class sizes can't have a positive effect on student achievement. Last year, general administrative costs increased by $4.6 million or 26%, according to an October 2010 independent auditors report. This increase is equivalent to over 18,000 computers that could be on our kids' desks. The district is not operating at peak efficiency, adding 30% more floor space or almost 1.8 million square feet since 1996—equivalent to 37 football fields—while the number of students attending those schools has declined by over 1000. The board has not taken the opportunity to make our excess space available for the many very successful and popular charter and alternative programs. These programs have more than 1000 children on waiting lists after they were not lucky enough to be chosen in a lottery. I could go on. 

What letter grade would you give Superintendent Carol Comeau and school administration, and why?

B+

Many times the superintendent unfairly takes the blame for poor choices made by the board. I think many of Ms. Comeau's critics don't understand that she works at the direction of the school board. With 20 years of public service myself, I can spot a dedicated public servant and I believe Ms. Comeau qualifies. We may not always agree on issues, but the superintendent has done a good job of implementing the directives of school board without pinning blame on them when their choices go badly.

What are your thoughts on the 2011-12 school budget approved by the school board? Is the budget too big? Not big enough? At the right amount?

School board members have very little control over the amount of the budget; the Assembly, State and the Federal governments set the quantity of the funding and the school board prioritizes those resources. That said, the school board made some poor choices in the latest budget process. The board increased class sizes and eliminated 20 classroom teaching positions in order to save several other positions that are unlikely to have as much positive effect on student outcomes. I know it must be excruciating to eliminate a job when you see a person eyeball-to-eyeball testifying at a board meeting, pleading to keep their position. But board members are hired to make tough calls and must be able to visualize the consequences and the "unseen" effects of their decisions. Increasing class sizes and eliminating 20 teachers was a bad call.

What school services would you like to see reinstated, and how would you suggest they are paid for?

I'd reinstate the 20 teachers and I'd pay for it by reducing some of the personnel and programs that the administration has recommended, but I would also look for opportunities to combine functions with the municipality to increase efficiency. I would also look for managed-competition opportunities to allow the private sector to accomplish some of the many tasks of the 90+ school district departments, where it makes good economic sense. I would also have considered closing one or two of our elementary schools and redistricting. We have lost over 2,800 kids from the elementary schools since charter schools have started in Anchorage, so we have quite a bit of excess capacity and are not operating at peak efficiency. We could generate some revenue from our surplus facilities by leasing them out to charter schools. These schools need the extra space with over 1000 kids on the waiting list for the most popular programs.

Are property taxes too high? Explain your answer.

Our property taxes are quite a bit higher than the national average. Even though we as Alaskans are by far the most voracious per capita consumers of federal and state dollars, in Anchorage we have one of the highest rates of property taxes in the U.S. According to the latest Tax Foundation survey in 2009, Anchorage ranked 167 out of 775 communities surveyed in highest property taxes per median income. Since 2009, our property taxes have continued to increase, so we are likely to be even higher on the list now. Many people will point out that we don't pay sales or income taxes—which are generally state taxes—so our overall tax burden is pretty low. Unfortunately, to replace our current $11 billion state budget without oil revenue, we would have to collect $40,400 per household in sales and income taxes. When the pipeline dries up, we will know what it's like to live like mere mortals. Hopefully we can approach that day with a more sustainable fiscal path than we are taking now.

The lack of results for the generous contributions made to the schools by the taxpayers. The School Board has spent money foolishly on things that are not urgently needed and don't improve student performance. Few would complain if our kids test scores had doubled along with the budget, but they haven't. Our graduation rates are still unacceptably low. Last year saw the worst attendance rates in at least 15 years and our 3-10th grade SBA test scores have dropped in every category—between 2-4% since 2006/07.

What are your thoughts on the three school bond propositions in front of voters?

I'm a big advocate of the Career, Technical and Vocational Education bond. It's long overdue that we give appropriate educational paths to the many students who will not attend college—and the many who will attend college but could use some practical experience in a hands-on trade prior to college. I've long felt that this is one of the biggest causes of our dismal graduation rates. Finland has the most successful education system in the world and half of Finnish students choose a trade school track at age 15. With the nature of our local economy, we need more welders than English professors.

I'm supporting the Service High project, but not enthusiastically. The renovations of Service have lingered too long and need to be completed. However, the cost of the theater expansion at Service is troublesome. There is no demonstrated need for additional theater space in the Anchorage school system, and the last 200-seat, intimate theater venue in the district will be destroyed in the process. The cost of the theater alone—including capital costs, interest, maintenance, heating and electricity over a 30-year period—is equivalent to the cost of putting a computer on every student’s desk in the district and replacing them every five years over the same 30-year period. Also troublesome is how this bond is "packaged" as a $37 million renovation. It actually uses $68 million in public funds, though much of that is and left over unsold bonds or "free money" from the state, as if it could not be used for any other more urgent purpose.

The "building life extension" bond is my least favorite. This is borrowing money for anticipatable maintenance needs that should have been budgeted. Leaving critical maintenance of our facilities up to the whims of the voters is a very bad practice that is reinforced by reimbursement conventions from Juneau.    

The last municipal election had the lowest voter turnout in at least 20 years. Why should people head to the polls and vote on April 5th?

All elections are important. People often seem to overlook municipal elections but get very spooled-up over national and state-wide races that have much less impact on their everyday lives. This allows special interests to set the agenda in local elections; benefiting the few, at the expense of the many.