Daily Sitka Sentinel

School Board Seeks Flat Funding from City

By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Sitka School Board members held a final budget hearing and special session Wednesday in the Sitka High library, hoping to salvage every last dollar crucial to the education of children, and the educators who strengthen them, arriving at a fiscal year 2020 budget of $21,044,513.
    For local funding, the board inserted the $7,228,700 figure that was approved by the Assembly last year, although the school board has been on notice since a special meeting with the Assembly on April 4 that they could expect only $6,532,476 in local funds for the FY20 budget.
    After receiving the budget from the school board, the Assembly has 30 days to approve a figure for the local share. The Assembly is scheduled to discuss school funding in their April 25 meeting according to school board president Jennifer McNichol, but won’t receive the school board’s formal budget request, including a letter to the mayor, until April 30 meeting.
    As approved by the school board Wednesday night, the budget calls for a number of staffing cuts, which had been avoided in recent years.
    “FY20 presented a multi-dimensional budget dilemma for our board to work with,” board member Elias Erickson said today. “I’m confident in the revenue projections we’ve based our spending on, and encouraged we’ve kept cuts as far from the classroom as possible, while keeping small class sizes for younger grade levels and maintaining a healthy fund balance to give us wiggle room in the likely case we may need to make revisions to our budget in June.”
    Last Friday the board laid out its plan to combat Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s statewide budget cuts - an elimination of 15 full time positions, half of whom are teachers. The initial plan showed that lower enrollment numbers will contribute to the loss of three $100K teaching positions.
    One at Baranof will be taken by retirement, and two at Keet Gooshi Heen will come in the second-fifth grade staff.
    Other staff losses in the coming year will be from eliminating or reassigning a reading interventionist (Baranof), a technology teacher (Blatchley, Sitka), a half-time arts teacher (Blatchley), a counselor (Blatchley, Sitka High), a secondary learning support teacher (districtwide), one-and-a-half secretaries (Sitka High), an IT technician (District), a half-time special ed administration position (District), three para-professionals (two at Sitka, one Keet Gooshi Heen), a principal (Pacific), and assistant principal (Blatchley).
    That plan was examined again Wednesday night, brightly displayed on a screen behind the board as they discussed three budget scenarios before arriving at an initial budget number, one that both the school district and, they hoped, the Assembly could appreciate as it included a break on health insurance costs, plus a two-month “premium holiday” that would decrease expenses by $700K.
    “It will also be affecting the city positively,” Erickson said of the cut in health care expense. “I think there is a really good chance they might be willing to contribute up to the (local funding) level we are asking. Not only that, if we get those monies in our balance we might even be able to do things like put back community schools, for example, something that is a community resource, something that is not just specific to our schools but our community enjoys. Hopefully, they will see we are doing things like that, that serve the communities."

The board heard public comment before continuing their deliberations.

“I am super relieved about the money coming from the insurance,” Keet Gooshi Heen music teacher Susan Brandt-Ferguson said. “But it makes me angry that we are at the mercy of these insurance companies and they can, at a whim, change our budget situation to that degree.. I’m happy it turned out this way but I am worried for the future if we are that much at their disposal..”

   Keet’s English Language Learner Rebecca Himschoot voiced concern over the two teacher cuts at the school, noting that the enrollment numbers were just two students less than the previous count.
   “You guys have been very thorough and very transparent and I appreciate that,” she said. “I am still not convinced on the two cuts at Keet when our next students numbers, when the only visual is two students less is really hard to comprehend. Calculated on class size and not understanding the Blatchley schedule and not wanting to throw a different school under the bus, when we look at the class size it is really about the group of kids in front of you not how many teachers versus how many kids in the school. It is not that simple.”
   Pacific High staff member Maggie Gallin asked the board to reconsider adding the assistant Blatchley principal’s district wide duties to Pacific’s principal.
“For those students to not have access to a counselor, and I don’t mean a counselor coming down from another building several hours a week.. that’s not how crisis work,” she said. “That is not how student needs are best addressed. To assign additional duties to the principal and leave the school without a social worker and counselor, and without a full time principal, is really a huge disservice to those students and those families... our other system’s will bear the brunt of that, our health care system, our legal system, and also our future kindergarteners.. these are members of our community who are not going to be set up for success and get the support they need and they are members of our community who many of have roots here and many are not going to relocate back. So we are also talking about future generations of Sitkans... our principal takes on additional duties already, including applying and managing grants..”  
Keet science teacher Kelly Buxton said that 23 students per teacher is unsafe.
“Talking about putting scalpels into peoples hands and you are cutting open different things and looking into things it becomes unmanageable,” she said. “Think about second graders at Keet. It is a lot of kids to manage. I have taught 22 before and it is hard for everybody.”

    The board considered three budget scenarios before making a main motion approving the FY20 budget at $19,162,085. The board then made amendments to that number.

    One of the choices was to put in $154,972 in revenue from the one-time $30 million in statewide funding that the legislature put aside for FY20 last year. Since that funding is uncertain, the board chose to put in only half of the amount they would expect with full funding of the $30 million.
    They added back one FTE to Baranof Elementary by reducing a half FTE of a Blatchley Middle School teacher and taking the remaining $50K out of the fund balance. The rationale was to try to keep cuts away from the classroom as much as possible.
    Members of the audience were allowed to comment as each amendment was brought up. Blatchley Principal Ben White commented, “We have been taking hits for years... home economics, Spanish, a librarian... the importance of education doesn’t change as kids get older.”
    Board member Dionne Brady-Howard said, “It feels like we’re bargain shopping in Walmart and trying to see what we can afford… our kids are more successful if they form bonds with adults.”
    The board also added back one FTE to Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary by reducing the Fund Balance by $100K. The board also made a motion to amend the third amendment but it failed. That motion was to cut .5 FTE BMS secretary and .5 FTE SHS secretary for $60,000 and reduce the fund balance by $40,000 to add back the one  position to Keet. 
    A fourth amendment also failed; it had been to eliminate one teaching position at SHS, the funds then were to be used as $50K for Community School request for proposals and $50K to fund balance.
    A fifth amendment passed. The board added $25K to budget for Community School RFP, pulling funds for this out of the district’s fund balance.
    The final motion on the FY20 budget of $21,044,513 passed. That included PERS/TRS (retirement) on-behalf payments from the state.
    Board member Eric Van Cise said today that after four years on the board he can honestly look at himself in the mirror and know that the board, as a collective body and community, have done the best they can be given the full scope of circumstances.
    “As we move forward, we as a unified body will work hard with our Assembly, state and federal entities to keep intact what we feel is required for the best education of our children,” he said. “It is a sad testament to our state and country when something so fundamentally important and a basic right for all children; public education must be so hard fought every year. Using our children as economic pawns is not acceptable. We as a publicly funded entity must and will continue to be diligent and accountable. I can only hope that the same will be said for the factors that affect our students’ lives and ability to succeed while away from the school campus.”