The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is bracing for another tough budget season. Early estimates put the district about $8.5 million in the red if it maintained the same staffing and programs next school year.
The clock is ticking for the board to make up the forecast deficit. State law requires the district to submit a balanced budget to the borough assembly by May 1. With that deadline looming, board members are revisiting familiar, but unpopular, ideas for saving money: consolidating schools and closing pools.
School board members convened in Soldotna this week for meetings. Board President Jason Tauriainen primed talks during a full day of work sessions Tuesday.
“Obviously, we have a little bit of a deficit that we're going to be working with. So this is the beginning of this discussion,” he said.
This year, the district is proposing to close Seward’s only middle school and Paul Banks Elementary School in Homer. It’s not a sure thing. But after reviewing the district’s 42 school sites, Superintendent Clayton Holland says those two met the criteria.
“Consolidation is not about short-term savings alone,” he said. “It's about making careful, student-focused decisions that protect educational opportunities while minimizing disruption to students, families and communities.”
Holland says the district prioritizes scenarios that prevent a need for new bus routes, create more student opportunities and keep at least one school in a community. Last year, the district considered closing schools in Moose Pass, Sterling and Nikoalevsk, ultimately closing the latter.
District data show it could save about $449,145 the first year after closing Seward Middle, and more than $600,000 the first year after closing Paul Banks Elementary.
One part of the state law that governs education funding rewards multiple smaller schools over a few consolidated ones, while another part of the law smooths out funding levels after abrupt changes. The net effect is that savings from school consolidation drops over time – to about a fifth in the case of Paul Banks. In Seward, closing the middle school would actually cost the district money in the long-run.
Mica Van Buskirk was elected to the school board a few months ago and represents the district that includes Seward. She says the district cannot afford to skirt tough decisions this year.
“We're just going to have to do it,” she said, pointing to declining enrollment. “We – all the other school districts are doing it. Are having to do it because of the climate for education and budgets. As much as I hate to say that, because one of my schools is on the chopping block, but it is. It's real.”
School pools, too. They’re funded through June, but beyond that, it’s uncertain.
“I think we need to take that step to move away from operation of pools,” Holland said.
Even though most of the Kenai Peninsula’s pools are hosted in school buildings, students aren’t the only ones swimming. Non-school groups use school pools for swim clubs, physical therapy, diving certification and even safety training. Users have fiercely opposed past closure attempts, but Holland says the district cannot afford to keep footing the bill.
Last election, voters in Ninilchik killed a proposal to shift pool costs to residents through higher property taxes.
Last year was chaotic for school funding statewide. After months of debate and two veto overrides, lawmakers bumped up base per-student funding by $700. That brought about $11.5 million more to peninsula schools and allowed board members to undo some budget cuts.
But this year, the extra funding isn’t going as far as the district had hoped. That’s because the taxable value of property in the Kenai Peninsula Borough went up, which could shift some of the education funding burden from the state to the borough. This year, the borough’s on the hook for around three million more dollars that would have previously come from the state.
State law describes the minimum and maximum amount of money the borough can give the school district. Holland says the district is going to ask the borough for maximum funding, even though he’s not sure it will actually get that. It’s almost $10 million more than what the district expects the borough mayor to propose. The mayor ties his budget proposal to inflation.
And state lawmakers are warning against high expectations for the legislative session that starts next week. Here’s Soldotna Republican Rep. Justin Ruffridge during a school board work session. Ruffridge is also a member of the state’s education task force, which toured central peninsula schools in November.
“From my perspective, moving forward, I think it's pretty unlikely that there will be any additional talks about funding,” he told the board.
The district is holding a series of community meetings to gather public input on the budget. The central peninsula meeting will be held Feb. 17 from 6-7 p.m. at Kenai Central High School.
